Tag: Florida

January 29 — Another Reason I’m Glad I’m Not a Democrat

Buck Banks

The Democratic Party of Florida is trying its mightiest to put a positive spin on its reprieve from punishment by the Democratic National Committee and chair Howard Dean. Appears the Deanster won’t whup up on Florida for moving its primary to January 29 after all.

Here’s how Karen Thurman, the reality-challenged chair of the state Dems, spins it:

It’s not as if Floridians aren’t used to being regularly disenfranchised — only every time we have a presidential election.

As Chair of your Party, I am proud to officially announce that Florida’s Democratic Presidential Preference Primary will be held on January 29, 2008, in accordance with a new state law and the will of Florida’s Democratic voters.

Although Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules can penalize states (except for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina) that hold 2008 primaries prior to February 5, the Florida Democratic Party’s leadership determined that holding a process outside the state-run January 29th election would be detrimental to the voters of this state.

Only problem with that is, it wasn’t the Democrats who made the decision and passed the state law to move the primary date, it was the Republican majority in the state legislature in collusion with our Republican governor, Charlie Crist. In response, Dean and the national party threatened to rob Florida of its delegates, render its primary meaningless and punish any candidates who campaigned in the state. By contrast, the Republican Party was willing to give Florida’s wingnuts a pass on breaking the same primary rules.

But that didn’t stop Thurman from trying to make it sound like it was a Democratic idea all along:

Florida Democrats made it clear that a date other than January 29th would potentially disenfranchise voters and inhibit preparations for a winning 2008 campaign — a campaign that will deliver the state’s 27 crucial electoral votes on November 4, 2008, to the Democratic Presidential nominee.

It’s not as if Floridians aren’t used to being regularly disenfranchised — only every time we have a presidential election.

The Florida Democratic Party missed an opportunity to point out on a national stage the Republican machinations that nearly resulted in the country’s fourth most populous state’s primary being rendered meaningless. The Republicans engineered it, Howard Dean very publicly condemned it and now the Florida Dems are trying to sugar-coat it.

I will go to polls on January 29, to vote for property tax reform and local politicians, but, as a registered independent, I won’t vote in the primary. So I won’t be a party to the next round of Republican electoral shenanigans and, thankfully, I won’t be a part of Karen Thurman’s sorry excuse for a political party.

Florida to Determine ’08 Election — for the Republican Party

Buck Banks

Deja-screw all over again: The GOP is going to party like it’s 2000 next year when Florida, through vote-count fraud and the machinations of then-state attorney general Katherine Harris, stole the election from Al Gore and gave it to George W. Bush. This time, however, the Democratic Party is playing the role of Harris in giving the election to the GOP.

‘Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates.’
— Howard Dean

That’s the takeaway from Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean’s comments to a bunch of worried rubes from New Hampshire the other day.

“Their primary essentially won’t count, ” Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said of Florida. “Anybody who campaigns in Florida is ineligible for delegates.”

Why? Because Florida’s Republican legislature and its Republican governor decided to move the state’s presidential primary to Jan. 29 in clear violation of DNC rules that decreed that no primary was to be held before Feb. 5.

What’s at stake here are Florida’s 208 Democratic Party delegates and its 27 electoral votes. Florida is the nation’s fourth most populous state, which is why it can swing an election. Which is why the GOP engineered the primary move — to render the Democratic Party meaningless in Florida in the upcoming election.

Which is why the Republican candidates can ignore a major Hispanic political gathering, because they know they’ll have Florida and its large, politically active Hispanic populace to itself during the campaign.

So Howard Dean is taking his cue from George Bush and is sticking by his guns and refusing to waive the DNC’s rules, effectively punishing the Democratic Party because the Republicans screwed them over by moving the primary date. Yeeaaugh!

Republican Candidates to Boycott Latino Convention

Trish

I hate going to Disneyworld too, so I understand every major Republican presidential candidate wanting to stay away. But…staging what amounts to a virtual boycott of what is known as the Latino political convention doesn’t seem like a smart move.

Especially when, according to a June 11 press release, all the Democrats will be there.

Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

Los Angeles, CA – The Democratic contenders in the 2008 presidential campaign will participate in a candidate forum hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in Orlando on June 30…

The participating candidates will include, in alphabetical order, Senator Joe Biden (DE), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Senator Chris Dodd (CT), former Senator John Edwards (NC), Representative Dennis Kucinich (OH), Senator Barack Obama (IL) and Governor Bill Richardson (NM).

NALEO extended identical invitations to the Republican presidential candidates to participate in a separate forum. All have declined to date.

So the question is, why do the Republicans think they can snub Latinos? Do they take the votes of this demographic as a given, or are they writing them off as going Democrat?

…several factors put the Hispanic vote in play. Among them: Non-Cubans aren’t as likely to have historical ties to the Republican Party as Cuban-Americans.

“Living in Weston, I see it just walking around the neighborhood. There are people from Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. They don’t have the same preconditioning to vote Republican,” said Weston resident Andrew Torres, president of the new Broward chapter of the state Democratic Party’s Hispanic Caucus…

Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said once Castro is gone, “you will see Cuban-Americans shift to the Democratic Party.”

…Torres said the increasing numbers of younger voters and people from countries other than Cuba make this a good time to capitalize on trends favoring Democrats.

The explanation could be simple, of course.

National and state Republican officials did not comment on why GOP hopefuls will not participate in the conference, but the campaigns of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney cited scheduling conflicts.

Those durn scheduling conflicts. Funny how they never crop up when it’s time to come to South Florida and fund-raise. And no matter how you slice it, boycotting the convention of their fellow elected officials can’t win many friends. Not to mention there are two other groups piggybacking off the event — the National Hispana Leadership Institute and the Orlando Chamber of Commerce’s Hispanic Summit.

Maybe there really is a simple reason. Republicans might just want to distance themselves from immigrants — and please their xenophobic base — as much as possible.

State Approves Using Taxpayer Computers for Wiki Whitewash of Republican Florida Lt. Gov.

Trish

Is it vandalism or is it the way of the wiki?
Either way, Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s administration says it’s O.K. to do it on the taxpayer’s dime. Um, as long as whatever you’re doing is favorable to his folks.

The Florida Progressive Coalition knew something was up when almost all the bad
stuff in their wiki on Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp was replaced with good. Most of the changes concerned stories about the state having to pay $50,000 in an age discrimination suit brought after Kottkamp fired an older state worker. See actual examples of the vandalism/editing. Oddly, references to Kottkamp’s support of flying the Confederate flag, long before Charlie picked him as his running mate, were left in.

As you know (but evidently no one in the White House or Justice Department does), computers can be identified. Tracing the IP address of the computer improving Kottkamp’s wiki info showed it belonged to the Florida Department of Management Services. Further checking placed the computer on the desk of Larry Ringers, the Lieutenant Governor’s chief of staff.

After weeks of demanding an explanation of how this does not violate the state’s own policy concerning the proper use of taxpayer-funded time and equipment, FPC received a reply on June 8 from Crystal Armstrong, the deputy secretary for Enterprise Information Technology Services at the Florida Department of Management Services.

Mr. Harper,

Modifications were made to the Lt. Governor’s biographical information. Changes were made from the computer of Larry Ringers who works for the Lt. Governor. By nature, and as referenced in your correspondence, wiki pages are publicly editable.

Thank You,

Crystal Armstrong

I guess we can take that as a “Yeah, we did it. So what?”

Celebrating Anita Bryant: The Mother of Gay Rights

Trish

You’d have to call Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen gone anti-gay zealot gone born again Christian gone divorced gone bankrupt orange juice spokesperson, a reluctant hero. But a new exhibit in South Florida does just that, commemorating the 30-year anniversary of her crusade and its monumental unintended affects.

Anita Bryant in 1977: “I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children”

In 1977, singer Anita Bryant successfully campaigned to repeal a Dade County ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians. [The recently called home Rev. Jerry] Falwell came to South Florida in support and two years later created the Moral Majority. Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly quickly joined Falwell in becoming outspoken opponents of gay rights.

“This is where they all had their stage debut,” said Jack Rutland, executive director of the Stonewall Library & Archives and organizer of the exhibit “Days Without Sunshine: Anita Bryant’s Anti-Gay Crusade…”

“In a completely unintended way, Anita Bryant was about the best thing to happen to the gay rights movement,” said John Coppola, exhibit curator and former head of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “She and her cohorts were so over the top that it just completely galvanized the gay rights movement.”

Rutland goes so far as to call Bryant the mother of the gay rights movement…

Bryant, now 67, declined to comment when contacted at her Anita Bryant Ministries International Inc. in Oklahoma City.

That’s probably because Anita herself hasn’t fared so well.

Singing from the age of two, Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America beauty pageant. She had three big pop hits: “‘Til There Was You” (1959); “Paper Roses” (1960); and “In My Little Corner of the World” (1960). In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey, with whom she eventually raised four children. She became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing “Come to the Florida Sunshine tree”, and opining that “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine”.

…concerns over homosexual recruitment of children inspired the name of Bryant’s political organization, Save Our Children. Among Bryant’s assertions during the campaign were “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.”

Bryant was also a pioneer on the receiving side of getting “pied,” as the YouTube video above shows. Before she took that pie in the face during an anti-gay press junket, such tactics were rare. So anyone who enjoyed seeing Ann Coulter pied should really thank Anita for leading the way.

But Anita’s fortunes took a dive after she spoke out.

Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission also was allowed to lapse because of the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns, the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice, and, at least reportedly, because of her divorce.

Her marriage to Bob Green failed at that time and in 1980 she divorced him. She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they have tried to reestablish her career in a series of small venues. Commercial success has been elusive, and they have left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001).

Who knows? Without Anita’s St. Bernard analogies and parental paranoia, gay people might still be in the closet. At the very least, she was fun to make fun of. Actually, she still is.

Florida’s Crist — Crank Up the Death Machine!

Buck Banks

Although Tennessee beat Florida to the punch in dropping its death penalty moratorium by offing a prisoner Wednesday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist lost no time in getting our great state back on the state-sanctioned murder list. Florida and Tennesse were among 37 states that had suspended killing prisoners because of questions over whether lethal injection was really less painful than, say, hanging by the neck or having a couple million volts of electricity shot into your cranium.

The state has made some changes at Starke, the state penitentiary where we mete out the ultimate punishment in these here parts. They made the death chamber bigger, installed video cameras and locks for the wheels of the gurney, so it doesn’t roll when the injection is made. All that is supposed to get our average time between injection and death back down in the 15-minute range, which is deemed humane, compared with the 34 minutes it took us to off the last guy.

But one thing hasn’t changed — the three-chemical combo that Florida has used for years to put down the ultimate offenders. Turns out it took 34 minutes for Angel Diaz to die, not because of the chemical mix, but because the needle was pushed through his vein and the drugs were absorbed slowly rather than quickly. Besides, we haven’t had any official post-execution complaints about the potion from the guilty ones.

I have a suggestion. Screw the moratorium. Ban execution in the United States. We’ll save piles of money on prosecutions and appeals, the perps will still be terminated in prison and we won’t be a member if the real Axis of Evil — the four nations that account for 92 percent of the world’s executions: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and us.

Florida: More Experiments in Voting

Buck Banks

Still glad I’m an Independent: Florida thinks it has been getting the short end of the presidential primary stick, so it has struck out into the no man’s land of January to set its vote date. This, despite the fact that the Democratic National Committee has threatened penalties, like stripping the state party of delegates, making the vote nonbinding and penalizing candidates who campaign in the state.

Whoa, them’s fighting words, but, like the big Republican-controlled brute it is, the Florida legislature moved the state’s primary from March to January, despite the threats.

Who needs Katherine Harris?

The result could lead to a scenario like this:

On Jan. 29, Florida Republicans and Democrats head to the polls to pick presidential nominees. Republican votes count, just as you would expect, but the results for Democrats would be nonbinding. No delegates would be awarded based upon the results and instead party activists and insiders would decide on some later date how to divvy up the state’s more than 200 delegates to the Democratic national convention.

See, while the Dems face stiff penalties for the primary shift, the Repugs don’t face any. So, we could potentially see Dem candidates giving the state a pass while Repugs campaign all over the place, with a predictable effect on the general election.

Who needs Katherine Harris when you’ve got a Republican-controlled state legislature to influence the presidential election outcome and guarantee we stay a red state.

First Day of Hurricane Season — Three Weeks Early

Trish


By all indications, 2007 will be the year frogs rain down from the sky and sinkholes swallow the Rockies.

My area is under a tropical storm watch. The first named storm of the season is here. She is Tropical Storm Andrea, with top sustained winds of 45 mph. This is huge.

For those of you who don’t know the dates of hurricane season like you know your own phone number, it’s June 1 through Nov. 30.

June 1 — as in three weeks from now — is the official start. The earliest hurricane in our country’s history was Alma, which hit the Florida panhandle on June 9, 1966.

But don’t worry, the federal government is on it. They will release their predictions for the 2007 hurricane season on May 22. I wonder if they’ll predict the season will start on May 9.

By the time they release their forecast, we will have probably had two more storms, four or five more tornados, and the Georgia wildfires will have spread to Washington, D.C. where Bush will give a speech about how it would adversely affect the economy if we were to try to do anything about global warming.

NRA Lobbyist: “Lock and Load; We’ll Be Back”

Trish

Florida Republicans got sideways yesterday with an old friend, and she’s mad as hell.

Forced to make a virtual Sophie’s choice between the gun and business lobbies — and no doubt influenced by events at Virginia Tech — they defeated the so-called, “Take Your Gun to Work” bill. The law was expected to serve as a model for the rest of the country.

The NRA put the blame for the defeat on “Republican turncoats”

In a rare setback for the powerful gun lobby, a House council on Wednesday soundly defeated a bill that would have allowed employees to bring their guns to work as long as they locked them in their cars or trucks…

Mark Wilson of the Florida Chamber of Commerce said the committee voted to protect “the private property rights” of businesses and residents. He applauded the council members “for voting their consciences under such tremendous pressure.”

…Some lawmakers clearly wanted to avoid the showdown. Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven, asked that the vote be postponed, saying it was “highly inappropriate” following the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Actually, it couldn’t have been more appropriate. But that’s not how past NRA president and chief lobbyist, Marion Hammer, sees it. Floridians recognize Hammer for her place in the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame, where she was installed by none other than former governor Jeb Bush.

In an e-mail to supporters, the NRA put the blame for the defeat on “Republican turncoats.”

“We will not forget these anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-constitution representatives,” said the message from Hammer, a former NRA president. “Most particularly we will not forget the Republican betrayers — some of whom have to run for re-election in 2008 and some are term-limited out but are planning to run for other offices.”

Actually it was large Florida employers, like Disney, who are more to thank. I can see why a parking lot full of loaded weapons would be unwelcome among the Mickey Mouse ears and strollers. But by all means, Marion, hammer away at those Republicans you don’t see as rabid enough.

She already is.

After the vote, Wilson, of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, tried to shake Hammer’s hand.

“Lock and load,” Hammer said. “We’ll be back.”