Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Bye-bye, Charlie


Watching Charlie on CNN push his Cover Florida health plan was hysterical. In two years, the program has signed up a grand total of 4,000 people. Like everything else, Charlie got it passed in the Legislature, grabbed some headlines, and abandoned it until dusting it off for a political campaign. If this is the answer to the nation's health care woes, it's time to bring on the death panels.

"Cover Florida is an oxymoran,'' says Beckey Cherney, president and CEO of the Central Florida Healthcare Coalition. "If you held it up as a national model, it would be what you would not do.'' link

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Florida Stars of Tomorrow - make that Yesterday

Broward County Commissioner and Vice Mayor Josephus Eggelletion, 60, was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiring to help launder more than $900,000 through a Bahamas bank account from what the undercover FBI agents told him was an investment fraud scheme. For his efforts, he was paid more than $23,000.

A county school board member, 51-year-old Beverly Gallagher, is accused of accepting $12,500 - some stuffed in official board of education envelopes - to help steer school business toward FBI agents posing as representatives of glass and construction companies.

The third political figure charged, former Miramar city commissioner Fitzroy Salesman, 52, is accused of taking $3,340 from undercover agents pretending to seek contracts to replace a gymnasium floor and build a park gazebo. Earlier this year, Salesman was convicted of a misdemeanor charge after drawing a pistol in a grocery store during an argument with another shopper.

FBI corruption probe nets 3 Fla. politicians

Sunday, September 20, 2009

SW Penile a Ponzi Haven???? Who Knew???


Someone call Vern Buchanan!

Although, it's not exactly a secret that developers, real estate con artists, lawyers, title co's, health insurers, bankers, builders, home insurers and a whole lot more have run every imaginable con known to man in Southwest Florida -- pretty well known, in fact, except apparently to Pollick at the Herald Tribune who unloads his mega-revelation upon his readers as if we poor innocents had never heard of Mr. Ponzi and his sunshine fans and emulators.

Art Nadel might be bogus, but he was good at it. The Herald Tribune's excited yawp, with its feckless question:

Has the
Gulf Coast become a Ponzi haven?


falls several megatons short of helpful in showing us how Florida become the penile pyramid scheme it is today. Here at the Penile state, we've long had a tag: "Ponzi Capital of the World." Thanks, HT, for nuthin'.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Pricks, Clueless Pricks, and Seriously Stupid Pricks


I overheard the president call McCain’s plan “a stunt.” Dana Perino said the negotiations were nearly over, and suddenly he was going to swoop in and muck things up? The president’s political adviser, Barry Jackson, was blunt, calling McCain a “stupid prick.”

His audience was a gold curtain next to a large portrait of George Washington.

I suggested that we also apologize to the former Soviet Union and retroactively concede the Cold War.

As events turned more surreal and staff members played the spin game with each other, I asked myself daily, What more can go wrong? The answer, of course, would be practically everything.


Hilarious Horseshit: Wingnuts Need No Reality in their Crowd Estimates


From Ben Dimero of Media Matters:

Eric Boehlert's latest column tracks the lie that 2 million protesters showed up at the 9/12 protests this weekend. All in all, it is a perfect microcosm of the way the conservative blogosphere functions. Facts? Who needs 'em.
The exaggerations about crowd size certainly aren't restricted to the blogosphere--
If you need anything, feel free to get in touch.

Thanks.

- Ben

Full Column:

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200909140039

Michelle Malkin and the anatomy of the 2 million protester lie

September 14, 2009 7:19 pm ET - by Eric Boehlert

Blame it on a tweet.

It turns out that's what kicked off the right-wing blogosphere's comically inept misinformation campaign last weekend to try to swell the size of Saturday's anti-Obama protest in the nation's capital, to jack the crowd size up to the wildly inflated -- and erroneous -- number of 2 million people.

Nice try.

According to estimates provided by the Washington, D.C., fire department, Malkin and friends were only off by 1,930,000 people. In other words, Malkin, citing fictitious press... more...

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Sarasota Wants You, Joey



Apparently if Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson Sr. lived in Sarasota he'd be making the money, not Rob Miller, his opponent:


Vern Buchanan, who held the "town meeting," doesn't need the money.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Fair question



If the national Republican hierarchy couldn't keep U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., from blurting out, "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's Wednesday address to Congress, what hope does a lowly county chairman have in maintaining decorum during a protest? Eric Ernst

HEY JOE









Thursday, September 10, 2009

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Sept. 11 Town Meeting with Vern Buchanan

Date:09/11/2009, 5:30 - 7 pm
Title:Vern Buchanan Town Hall Meeting (Sarasota)
Theme/Notes:To discuss health care, jobs, and the economy in Sarasota
Details:The Congressman will meet with constituents to discuss health care, jobs and the economy in Sarasota. Please RSVP by calling the Buchanan Sarasota office at 941-951-6643.
Location:Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall located at 777 N. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota
Cost/Donation:Free - RSVP at phone below.
Info-Phone:941-951-6643
Info-URL:(link supplied by Buchanan did not work)

Treasonable socialist propaganda. Call the Asshat Brigade.


Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.
I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.
Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.
You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.
I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.
That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.
That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?
Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.
Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Sarasota is like everyplace else: Undereducated


Health Care Public Option Vigil in Sarasota, Florida Brings Out Hundreds of Supporters


... One anti-reform protester held a sign with the controversial image of Obama depicted as The Joker. Messages against the public option were mixed, ranging from "Give me liberty, not debt" to "Socialism" to "Get a Job" with lots of mentions of "Obamacare" ...

He's not just a hate attractor, he's right behind Rockefeller:


Buchanan high on wealth list

U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, is one of the least senior members of Congress, but there is one area Buchanan remains among the upper echelon on Capitol Hill.

Personal wealth.

For the second consecutive year Buchanan, who is in his third year in Congress, is listed as the sixth wealthiest member of Congress, according to an analysis done by The Hill, a Washington D.C. newspaper. MORE...

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Florida: A Ponzi Deliverable



Confirmation of what even wingnuts have known for quite some time:

Florida has always had a tenuous relationship with reality...It was bound to catch up with us. Gary Mormino, a distinguished historian of Florida, says our whole economy is more or less a big Ponzi scheme.
more


Thursday, September 3, 2009

Greer: Wingnut takes flight


Florida Democrats: Greer Should Re-focus His Attention to Credit Card Reforms

Tallahassee, FL - Today, the Florida Democratic Party sent the following letter responding to Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer's baseless indoctrination claims:

James A. Greer, Chairman
Republican Party of Florida
420 E. Jefferson Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Dear Chairman Greer,

Come on now. You can't be serious about these baseless indoctrination claims.

While it is clear you have been busy meeting with the 'Birthers', making up claims of death panels in the health insurance reform bills, and now recently begun studying political theory and elementary civics, maybe your time would be better spent working on credit card reform efforts.

More specifically, rather than worrying about President Obama's efforts to inspire our nations' school children to do their homework and speak to them about, "the importance of persisting and succeeding in school," maybe you should spend your time working to track down all the Republican Party of Florida's American Express Platinum cards. You know, the credit cards you gave out to all the Republican Party's elected officials including Speaker Ray Sansom, Sen. Jeff Atwater, Sen. Mike Haridopolos, Rep. Dean Cannon, and many others. In doing so, you transformed your political party into nothing more than a Tammany Hall for Republican leaders as they lived large on the slush fund that is today's Republican Party of Florida.

Or maybe you should focus your efforts on explaining to the IRS how you and other Republican leaders didn't commit tax evasion as you have been reportedly accused of doing by charging personal expenses to the RPOF. But because the only thing that the RPOF has seemingly distributed to more Republican leaders in Florida than AmEx cards is tinfoil hats - now apparently fashioned from your old AmEx Platinum cards - we were concerned that your AmEx Platinum hat blocked your ability to see the reaction to your baseless charges. As such, I wanted to make sure you saw some of the coverage.

PolitiFact.com, a project of the St. Petersburg Times that recently won a Pulitzer Prize for their efforts helping Americans find the truth in politics wrote:

You might think that would be a harmless topic, and that people across the political spectrum could agree on the importance of education. Not so for the Republican Party of Florida...

We reviewed the study materials but didn't see any mention of controversial issues, let alone any attempt to indoctrinate students in socialism...

But he crossed a line when he said that Obama intended to discuss "plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies" and other policy matters not germane to education. That is factually incorrect, and the party could not offer any support for the statement. For raising the specter of socialist ideology and indoctrination, the party takes its claim to an additional, absurd level. We rate the Republican Party of Florida's statement Pants on Fire!

And Mark Murray from NBC News wrote on their First Read blog:

This coming Tuesday, President Obama is set to deliver a speech on education and its importance to students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA...

Yet somehow, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer, believes Obama's speech as a platform "to spread" his "socialist ideology."

...Has the state of our political discourse devolved to the point where a president's speech about the importance of education gets called a socialist power grab?

So, rather than waste all of our time with statements that are no more credible that the craziest of conspiracy theories, maybe you should turn off Glenn Beck, tune out Rush Limbaugh, ignore the Secessionist movement and focus your energy on cleaning up the Republican culture of cronyism and corruption in Tallahassee.

Best wishes,

Eric Jotkoff
Communications Director
Florida Democratic Party

Stupidity Level set on Stun


Where does the Penile State come up with these people? Disney world? Everglades lagoons?

Greer Condemns Obama's Attempt to Indoctrinate Students


Tallahassee- Â Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer today released the following statement condemning President Obama's use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda.

"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology. ...

"While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda. ... blah

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/sep/02/Republican-indoctrinate-socialist-pants-fire/



Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Republican official gags on Cristening of LeMieux




My Word: Fed up with Crist's shenanigans

By Ed Havill

September 2, 2009

George LeMieux's appointment by Gov. Charlie Crist to the U.S. Senate was the final straw that broke this Republican officeholder's back.

Within five minutes of the governor's announcement, I removed my voter registration from the Republican Party. I am no longer affiliated with any political party.

Crist went through the public motions of pretending to consider various others to fill the seat vacated by Mel Martinez. By choosing his 2006 political campaign manager, George LeMieux, the governor decisively demonstrated two things:

He is only interested in what's best for Charlie Crist, and he has utter contempt for what's best for Floridians. More...

Ed Havill is Lake County property appraiser.


Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Florida Dems Digusted

After Republican Speaker Ray Sansom's indictment and revelations about the Republican Party of Florida's AmEx slush fund, now Charlie Crist taps his friend and campaign manager to go to the U.S. Senate. These people aren't standing up for Floridians.

Instead they let corruption and cronyism run rampant here in Tallahassee - from Ray Sansom, to former lobbyist Bill McCollum, and now current lobbyist George LeMieux.

I know we can stop it. This weekend, after Crist's announcement, thousands of Floridians have already pledged to help end the Republican culture of cronyism and corruption in Tallahassee. But, the only way we can stop them is at the ballot box.

We need your help to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime election and to end the Republican culture of cronyism and corruption in Tallahassee. Sign the pledge:

http://www.fladems.com/repubcronyism