Author: Trish

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) is taking heat from Republicans for being – dare I say it? – a Democrat.

AP is reporting that the Hypocrisy Party is hitting hard and early at Nelson, against whom they will run Paragon of Virtue Katherine Harris if they must, but preferably anyone, and we mean ANYONE, else.

Nelson said he has been expecting low blows…

But even Nelson was caught off guard when told a Republican group was questioning whether he would be easy on sexual predators because he appeared with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in historically black Eatonville.

After the appearance, the National Republican Senatorial Committee posted items on its Web site asking “Nelson Campaigns With Obama – Does He Agree With Obama’s Record Of Lenience On Sexual Predators?” and “Does Nelson Agree With Obama’s Refusal To Support Commonsense Measures To Keep Children Safe?” The site then listed votes Obama made as a state senator on issues such as sex offenders, pornography and adult businesses near schools.

Eatonville, for those of you not from around here, is near Orlando, and is famous as the hometown of author Zora Neale Hurston.

Republicans used Nelson’s record to show he is an aberration in the Senate, what with being a Democrat and all.

[A Republican strategist] says Nelson voted against the president’s tax cuts, opposed abortion restrictions such as parental notification and a late-term procedure foes call “partial-birth abortion” and was against limiting civil lawsuit awards.

Uh, yes. You got us there. It indeed appears that Nelson is not a Republican. For his part, Nelson is aware that this race will be dirty and not necessarily reality-based.

Florida voters “are looking for somebody that they perceive in the mainstream. That’s where Florida is politically. And so naturally your political enemies paint you as someone that is not in the political mainstream,” Nelson said.

Just as “clean air” means “pollution like you’ve never imagined” and “healthy forests” means “clear-cutting and four-lane highways with convenience stores,” so “banning oil drilling near Florida” means “Go for it!”

Presidential Brother Jeb Bush has apparently had it all explained to him since yesterday, when PR reported even he didn’t know what his slimeball sibling was up to. Now he’s on board with selling out Florida shores to Big Oil.

Tallahassee Democrat:

The governor said he will seek a pact with the U.S. Department of the Interior to establish a 100-mile ban on oil drilling off Florida’s shores, diminishing the importance of the oil and gas inventory, which is part of the new energy bill speeding through Congress this week…

“Our goal would be to have a moratorium 100 miles from Jacksonville to Pensacola,” Bush said, adding that the section of water adjacent to the Florida line into Alabama should be included in the 100-mile buffer zone.”

Sounds good, right? Well, no.

Critics immediately seized on the governor’s comments as backpedaling, accusing him of playing into the White House’s goal of opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico just beyond the 100-mile buffer to new drilling.

“That’s a complete retrenchment,” said Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who has led the fight against the administration’s push for new energy development in the Gulf.

“A 100-mile buffer off the Gulf Coast of Florida would probably be the biggest sellout in modern state history,” he said. “It would give up the entire Eastern Planning Area.”

…[McLaughlin] said he believes the governor’s position is evidence that he will not oppose the administration’s effort to support a 100-mile buffer in the gulf and then open the rest of the region to drilling. The distance between Tampa Bay and the Alabama line is 285 miles, 185 miles of which would now be open to drilling, he said.

And throwing in that “Jacksonville to Pensacola” comment is like saying Sprite is fat-free. Duh. No one’s talking about drilling in the Atlantic.

McLaughlin also chided the governor’s attempts to portray Florida’s southeastern coast as being under threat to oil drilling…

Because the Florida Straits surrounding the Keys are in a marine sanctuary, drilling will not occur there, he said. If oil exists beyond the southeastern coast of the state, the drop-off in the continental shelf is too steep to drill. And for decades the areas along the central and northern Atlantic coast have not been under consideration because the federal government cannot allow oil rigs along the area used for NASA’s shuttle launch.

“It would be no great achievement to push for protections on the East Coast and the Keys,” McLaughlin said. “It’s the eastern Gulf area that’s up for grabs.”

I can almost see the rigs from here.

If you’ve been under the same rock as me (doubtful – mine is pretty remote), then you also missed it when our esteemed and sure-footed military leaders ordered American troops in England to hide like George Bush from an unscreened crowd after the London subway bombings.

They didn’t miss it in England. Columnist Brian Reade, in London’s Daily Mirror had some really choice words for us.

One thing you learn when disaster strikes is how right you were about the dodgy specimens in your midst…

How typical was it that all of its 12,000 servicemen stationed in Britain should be banned from travelling within the M25 for five days, as Londoners tried to show the terrorists and the wider world that life goes on as normal?

Once again we saw, as we have in the numerous deaths through “friendly fire”, when the heat is on, the US military operates like a selfish shower of headless chickens.

It was the same back home, where the Gibbon-in-Chief used the bombings to convince a sceptical electorate that soldiers may be dying in Iraq, but hey, they’re doing so to stop your local subway being blown up.

The American Press, largely a gutless shower of sycophants, have demonised the UK for its tolerance of Muslims.

Commentators labelled “Londonistan” the single biggest threat to American security, and demanded all Britons get a visa before entering their airspace.

Thanks buddies. It’s good to know you’re right behind the people who foolishly stuck their heads above the parapet with you in Iraq.

[…]

The folks who brought you the, “we’ll act if someone committed a crime” distinction as well as the constantly morphing justification for war in Iraq now have a whole new standard in sleight of hand.

They’re calling Florida Louisiana for purposes of drilling for oil.

Anyone doubting that George Bush is just a money- and power-grubbing sham should come on down to the Sunshine State. And check with his brother, Jeb and loyal minion, Sen. Mel Martinez, while you’re at it. The “honesty” president didn’t bother to clue them in on his end run.

St. Petersburg Times:

With final negotiations over the massive federal energy bill almost finished, the Bush administration caught some of its most loyal Florida supporters by surprise with a last-minute attempt to open more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling…

Martinez said Tuesday that both he and the governor were upset the White House hadn’t warned them about the proposal. Gov. Bush declined to comment about what he knew in advance.

Martinez first learned of it late last week from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a strong proponent of gulf drilling. Landrieu showed him a memo detailing Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s plan to redraw the state boundaries, to give more of the eastern gulf to Louisiana and open it to drilling.

The plan – which only a Republican could love – involves redrawing state boundaries to make the area just east of Tampa Bay part of the Big Easy. Still, Sen. Mel’s perplexed quote is one for the record books.

“I was surprised the administration took this position so aggressively,” Martinez said. “…The question is how you really define Florida.”

Yes, how DO you define Florida? After all, both Louisiana and Florida have alligators. They both have shrimp boats. And there’s really not much difference between Ybor City and the French Quarter, accents aside. What the hey, Louisiana, you can have Tampa!

Martinez was so moved by the deceit that he actually uttered a negative word about a Republican initiative – to “inventory” oil reserves – in public.

Miami Herald:

”Florida’s coastlines are in danger,” said U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida. “The inventory tarnishes the entire energy bill, and I think this is a precursor to drilling.”

Strong stuff for the guy who up to now was considered an administration flunky all the way.

The plans are truly a bummer. Besides the certainty of oil spills once drilling starts, the exploration process itself is a disgrace.

… powerful air guns send explosive shock waves into the seabed, emitting high-frequency and low-intensity sounds into the water.

The sound waves that bounce back…can be deafening for fish, and can destroy the air-filled bladders that help them navigate and disrupt the migration of marine mammals such as whales and dolphins.

The tests are expected to, “harm marine mammals and fisheries from the Keys to Apalachicola Bay.” And that’s pretty well the entire Florisiana coast.

Karl Rove must be tied up with other matters. Instead of using Karl’s strategic acumen, Bush is calling on other slimeballs to help get his homie, John Roberts, approved for the Supreme Court. But as usual, he came down to Jeb Country to do the dirty work.

Palm Beach Post:

A law firm headed by the former chairman of the Florida GOP is part of an $18 million campaign blitz supporting U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts and backed by the conservative group that underwrote the anti-John Kerry “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” ads last year.

The Tew Cardenas firm, with offices in Tallahassee, Miami and Washington, is promoting President Bush’s judicial nominee in Florida as part of a 20-state strategy in which the conservative nonprofit organization Progress for America already has begun airing television and radio ads…

Law firm partner Al Cardenas was chairman of the Republican Party of Florida during the protracted 2000 Florida presidential dispute and also served as the state chairman for Bush’s reelection campaign last year.

There are some really deep pockets here, as you might expect.

…Progress for America pledged in June to spend $700,000 defending Bush’s nominee.

It has spent more than $50 million “promoting President Bush’s agenda,” according to its Web site, and most recently spent more than $11 million defending the president’s Social Security reforms.

Well, that was $11 million down the drain.

And the usual suspects strike again.

One of Progress for America’s “sources” supporting Roberts’ confirmation is Ken Connor, the founder of the Christian-based Family Research Council who represented Gov. Bush in his fight to keep Terri Schiavo on life support.

Can’t these people just crawl off somewhere and expire?

Whoops. Look who I’m talking about.

Anyway, it sounds like they’re trying to use the fear factor on their donors to raise even more.

“I fear that, based on the early skirmishes we’ve seen and heard from leaders from the other side, it appears to me that this could turn out to be a free-for-all that could end up demeaning something that has as much sanctity to the United States as the Supreme Court,” Cardenas said. “It’s not going to be an easy time for Mr. Roberts and his family, for sure.”

Stop it, I’m getting all teary-eyed.

Florida’s Jessica Lunsford Act, signed by Jeb in May and set to go into effect Sept. 1, rode the express lane through the Legislature. It won unanimous support just over a month after the girl was found murdered by a sex offender. Now school officials are wishing the bill had taken the scenic route instead.

St. Augustine Record:

The law requires those who prey on children under 12 to be sentenced to at least 25 years in prison and, if they get out, to be tracked for life.

It also requires that all people entering schools (when children are there) have background checks…

The law means garbage men, repair men, food deliverers, construction workers, tutors, members of the media and the like will have the go through extensive evaluation before they can proceed in their purpose…

“(We) have to re-fingerprint (employees who had it done) within the last five years,” [St. Johns County School District Superintendent Dr. Joseph] Joyner said. “We have to go back and fingerprint our employees that haven’t had it done. It’s a cost we’re going to have to bear ourselves.”

There is an additional cost of $6 per year, per person, to have the fingerprints stored. The school district has 6,000 employees…

Joyner assured that implementation into the school system is going to be difficult, especially immediately. “We probably have 1,500 vendors … different people we write checks to,” he said.

For vendors, fingerprinting is $56 each time it has to be done, which will be covered by the organization the visiting individual is associated with.

Lunsford, it should be noted, was abducted from her home, not from her school.

Why are so many of these fights taken to the public schools? These new security mandates, which will likely only be followed by law-abiding citizens and therefore not save one child from Jessica Lunsford’s fate, join others, like having an American flag in every classroom, that are someone’s idea of The Way Things Ought to Be. Instead, they place ridiculous burdens on the system and divert energy and resources from the long ago purpose of schools: education.

Can you say, “Pay back?” I thought you could.

Florida newspapers, including the Miami Herald are reporting today that:

U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts provided legal advice to Gov. Jeb Bush in the weeks following the November 2000 election as part of the effort to make sure the governor’s brother won the disputed presidential vote.

Roberts did this out of the goodness of his partisan heart, and on his own dime.

Roberts was ”one of several experts who came to Florida to share their ideas,” said [Jeb] spokesman Jacob DiPietre. Roberts came “at his own expense and met with Gov. Bush to share what he believed the governor’s responsibilities were under federal law after a presidential election and a presidential election under dispute.”

Roberts has been skulking around the right people for a very long time, with excellent results. The Herald notes…

His connection to Dean Colson, a lawyer with the Miami firm of Colson Hicks Eidson. Colson had been a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist at the same time as Roberts in 1980 and was best man at Roberts’ wedding. Brian Yablonski, who was then a top aide to the governor, worked at the Colson law firm before he went to work with Bush…

Since the recount, the ties between the firm where Roberts worked at the time, Hogan & Hartson, and Florida’s government has grown deeper, as Hogan & Hartson has taken on several high-profile legal jobs in the state. The firm, for which Roberts worked from 1986 to 1989 and again from 1993 to 2003, represents and lobbies the Legislature for the Scripps Research Institute, which was given $500 million by state and local governments to set up an operation in Florida.

The Palm Beach Post notes Pres. Bush’s attitude of gratitude was evident early and, with this week’s nomination, often.

Two years after taking office, President Bush nominated Roberts, a conservative, to the federal court of appeals in Washington.

USA Today chronicled more of Roberts’ generosity toward Republicans.

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts has donated to the political campaigns of several Republican candidates, including one senator who will vote on Roberts’ appointment to the high court.

In recent election years, Roberts has contributed more than $3,700 to Republican candidates, including $1,000 to George W. Bush’s successful bid for the presidency in 2000…

Much of Roberts’ political giving was to his law firm’s political action committee. He gave more than $5,600 to the Hogan & Hartson PAC, especially during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.

In 1998, the Hogan & Hartson PAC made $111,800 in political donations, with more going to Republicans than Democrats. The same was true in 2000; Hogan & Hartson gave $67,000 to Republicans and $37,250 to Democrats.

With the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. today, Pres. Bush struck an historic note for straight, neoconservative, white men, a group whose voice is often vastly underrepresented in American society.

“I believe John Roberts will speak for ‘the rest of us,’” Bush said during his live televised announcement. “Men like me, men of privilege. Rich men who just keep getting richer, thanks to my tax breaks. Men who play golf in exclusive country clubs and duck hunt with guaranteed minimum kills.”

Bush noted that Roberts was yet another of the men he felt comfortable selecting because they previously served in the one-term administration of his father, Pres. George H.W. Bush.

“He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: a penis, European ancestry, and firm, resolute opinions,” Bush said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he drives a Hummer. Not a Hummer 2, mind you, but a Hummer.”

Roberts is expected to gain easy confirmation, since so many members of Congress can relate.