Rick Scott Watch
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Political Serial Killers
There has to be a metaphor for these people who screw us so badly with a smile on their faces. This isn't the harshest one I could think of for a headline.
Our governor is not alone in his villainous hypocrisy. There are other governors who are behaving this way, and they are aided and abetted by political opportunists in their respective states.
In Florida, for instance, they talk about jobs, while they are killing 24,000 of them. They talk about education, while they are firing teachers or stealing their pensions, or their benefits, or trying to pit the parents against them. This, while they are trying to find a way to Stasi the remainders of their ranks,out of a careers.
They talk about police protection while they are actually considering to privatize the Florida Highway Patrol, or the Department of Corrections.
They are like the abuser who says "suffer the children to come unto me." They kill dreams of the young, for gain. They kill hope. And they will tell you they are helping the children as they do it.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), senate president of our State House, comes from my neck of the woods, the Space Coast, Brevard County. Mike has a great big ole smile, and the delivery of an excellent middle school teacher. He visits the schools, gets his picture taken there. Mike is a teacher as well, you know, at the community college.
How he visits those schools and then goes back to the state house and votes for massive cuts to education is just so beyond me. Is it me? Am I being too harsh?
They will talk about "tough choices" here at this point. They say "someone's got to make the tough choices," and won't acknowledge it's a sham to make those while they give massive tax breaks to the wealthy, while they cut the millage for schools to make it happen. Are there other ways? They won't hear them. They won't mention the budget crisis was a plague unleashed with intent, with Machiavellian verve, by the very people decrying the need for fiscal responsibility.
Mike's case may be one of the most naked flip flops in state history. He first voices opposition to the governor's plan to nix HSR but someone must have gotten to him. Someone whispered into his ear, that the way to defeat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) in the next election, was to agree with Rick Scott. Because all the doors in the world would be open to him. All the money in the world to mount an opposition.
Funny that I see Bill Nelson at our county offices more than I see Mike Haridopolos.
You announce you're a democrat in my county and you might as well walk down the road naked with a hammer and sickle emblazoned on your chest in red paint.Well, not anymore. Some of us, aren't hiding anymore.The more I see of this, the more disgusted I become.
You don't attempt to wage war on teachers, cops, and state workers, and call yourself a caring Florida public official. You don't kill jobs for purely political reasons.
You don't take money out of the pockets of teachers and hand it over to corporations who don't need the tax breaks.
You don't kill research grants, and scholarships to worthy students, lay off environmental regulators, fire officers of child protective services, and call yourself a careful steward of our future.
Say what you want about Charlie Crist, he was a good governor. He cared. You could tell it on his face when he came to my county. You could see it in his eyes as you shook his hand.
This man, this Rick Scott, and his Kochey minion, don't care one wit about this state. Haridopolos has obviously struck that Faustian bargain, willing to do anything for higher office.
Meanwhile our governor walks around with a butcher knife, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. Cutting. If it moves, he slices. Like a deranged mad-mad, he doesn't necessarily need to know why. In fact, it seems to please him more that he NOT understand something he is killing.
He has become the Jason Voorhees of Florida politics.
There are four, perhaps five just like him scattered like hateful, covert operatives across the country.
Our governor is not alone in his villainous hypocrisy. There are other governors who are behaving this way, and they are aided and abetted by political opportunists in their respective states.
In Florida, for instance, they talk about jobs, while they are killing 24,000 of them. They talk about education, while they are firing teachers or stealing their pensions, or their benefits, or trying to pit the parents against them. This, while they are trying to find a way to Stasi the remainders of their ranks,out of a careers.
They talk about police protection while they are actually considering to privatize the Florida Highway Patrol, or the Department of Corrections.
They are like the abuser who says "suffer the children to come unto me." They kill dreams of the young, for gain. They kill hope. And they will tell you they are helping the children as they do it.
Sen. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), senate president of our State House, comes from my neck of the woods, the Space Coast, Brevard County. Mike has a great big ole smile, and the delivery of an excellent middle school teacher. He visits the schools, gets his picture taken there. Mike is a teacher as well, you know, at the community college.
How he visits those schools and then goes back to the state house and votes for massive cuts to education is just so beyond me. Is it me? Am I being too harsh?
They will talk about "tough choices" here at this point. They say "someone's got to make the tough choices," and won't acknowledge it's a sham to make those while they give massive tax breaks to the wealthy, while they cut the millage for schools to make it happen. Are there other ways? They won't hear them. They won't mention the budget crisis was a plague unleashed with intent, with Machiavellian verve, by the very people decrying the need for fiscal responsibility.
Mike's case may be one of the most naked flip flops in state history. He first voices opposition to the governor's plan to nix HSR but someone must have gotten to him. Someone whispered into his ear, that the way to defeat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) in the next election, was to agree with Rick Scott. Because all the doors in the world would be open to him. All the money in the world to mount an opposition.
Funny that I see Bill Nelson at our county offices more than I see Mike Haridopolos.
You announce you're a democrat in my county and you might as well walk down the road naked with a hammer and sickle emblazoned on your chest in red paint.Well, not anymore. Some of us, aren't hiding anymore.The more I see of this, the more disgusted I become.
You don't attempt to wage war on teachers, cops, and state workers, and call yourself a caring Florida public official. You don't kill jobs for purely political reasons.
You don't take money out of the pockets of teachers and hand it over to corporations who don't need the tax breaks.
You don't kill research grants, and scholarships to worthy students, lay off environmental regulators, fire officers of child protective services, and call yourself a careful steward of our future.
Say what you want about Charlie Crist, he was a good governor. He cared. You could tell it on his face when he came to my county. You could see it in his eyes as you shook his hand.
This man, this Rick Scott, and his Kochey minion, don't care one wit about this state. Haridopolos has obviously struck that Faustian bargain, willing to do anything for higher office.
Meanwhile our governor walks around with a butcher knife, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. Cutting. If it moves, he slices. Like a deranged mad-mad, he doesn't necessarily need to know why. In fact, it seems to please him more that he NOT understand something he is killing.
He has become the Jason Voorhees of Florida politics.
There are four, perhaps five just like him scattered like hateful, covert operatives across the country.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Rick Scott: The Lone Ranger?
"I don't know of anyone else in Florida who agrees with the governor. He's the lone ranger on this deal."
Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on Bloomberg News Feb. 25.
Hats off to LaHood, this is an excellent nickname but nationally, well, Rick Scott isn't alone.
The Koched-up governors don't particularly like high-speed rail.
If we watch, we see the governor never mentions rail. He also has a curious habit of moving his head back and forth like a rain-bird lawn sprinkler. I think he's going for the "visionary with the far away eyes" thing here. It just comes off "rain-bird". Right, right, right, right.....aaaallllllllll the way back, left.
Anyway...
Modern high speed rail is part of a national transportation revolution that has been in the works for years. It is also championed by Obama. But Scott mentions specifically, the need to improve roads rather than rail. Why? Wouldn't rail qualify a infrastructure? He's already been assured out the proverbial yin that cost over-runs will be handled by the contractors. That sounds like a little dummy-saying, gibberish that sounds like something, but really it's not.
So what gives?
Random speculation here. Just spit-ballin'
Roads equals more asphalt requiring more petroleum, more fossil fuels to run the autos. In short, it requires more Koch.
Nelson mentions congestion. And who needs congestion? Kochs and the Koched-up governors do. What happens when you're on the highway and there's a traffic jam? Needless guzzling of gas.
Koch.
If you opt not to purchase a new car because you have a rail alternative that spans the nation, what about all those minerals that went in to making that car, the petroleum products for the brakes, right down to the windshield wipers?
You don't buy them.
Koch.
Something to think about.
Remember, Florida, none of this is about you. It's not about 24,000 jobs the governor just cost us; oh no. He doesn't care about that at all.
It's about making decisions that appeal to the money trough, managed by the Kock brothers. Sorry, the Koch brothers. It's about furthering the political career of one Rick Scott.
See, to our governor, we are all just ancillary parts in a television drama about Rick Scott. We are the "good townspeople" expected to listen to the lanky stranger with the mid-western accent, and do precisely what he says, so he can ride off into the sunset victorious.
And I guess, that does make him the Lone Ranger.
Trouble is, we are not children and we can see behind the mask and we don't believe homespun fairy tales.
Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on Bloomberg News Feb. 25.
Hats off to LaHood, this is an excellent nickname but nationally, well, Rick Scott isn't alone.
The Koched-up governors don't particularly like high-speed rail.
If we watch, we see the governor never mentions rail. He also has a curious habit of moving his head back and forth like a rain-bird lawn sprinkler. I think he's going for the "visionary with the far away eyes" thing here. It just comes off "rain-bird". Right, right, right, right.....aaaallllllllll the way back, left.
Anyway...
Nelson assails Scott's decision on bullet train : MyFoxORLANDO.com
Modern high speed rail is part of a national transportation revolution that has been in the works for years. It is also championed by Obama. But Scott mentions specifically, the need to improve roads rather than rail. Why? Wouldn't rail qualify a infrastructure? He's already been assured out the proverbial yin that cost over-runs will be handled by the contractors. That sounds like a little dummy-saying, gibberish that sounds like something, but really it's not.
So what gives?
Random speculation here. Just spit-ballin'
Roads equals more asphalt requiring more petroleum, more fossil fuels to run the autos. In short, it requires more Koch.
Nelson mentions congestion. And who needs congestion? Kochs and the Koched-up governors do. What happens when you're on the highway and there's a traffic jam? Needless guzzling of gas.
Koch.
If you opt not to purchase a new car because you have a rail alternative that spans the nation, what about all those minerals that went in to making that car, the petroleum products for the brakes, right down to the windshield wipers?
You don't buy them.
Koch.
Something to think about.
Remember, Florida, none of this is about you. It's not about 24,000 jobs the governor just cost us; oh no. He doesn't care about that at all.
It's about making decisions that appeal to the money trough, managed by the Kock brothers. Sorry, the Koch brothers. It's about furthering the political career of one Rick Scott.
See, to our governor, we are all just ancillary parts in a television drama about Rick Scott. We are the "good townspeople" expected to listen to the lanky stranger with the mid-western accent, and do precisely what he says, so he can ride off into the sunset victorious.
And I guess, that does make him the Lone Ranger.
Trouble is, we are not children and we can see behind the mask and we don't believe homespun fairy tales.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Fifty Governors Convene in D.C., Scott Included. You're not invited
He's in D.C. today.
Before you've had your coffee he's doing an interview at Bloomberg television. He will deliver canned answers about delivering 700,000 jobs, while somehow slip-sliding around the fact he just threw away 24,000.
Then he's sliding over to the Marriott for a chat with the EDC of the entire nation. It's an economic development committee or council. You've hung around county politics long enough and you've run into one of these curious creatures called an Economic Development Council; quasi-business, quasi-public body. No oversight. They get paid taxpayer money, often to cut and facilitate deals that the taxpayer never sees one dime of in return.
Next he's off to the confab of governors held at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue. Looks like a nice place from Street View, and the rooms are swanky doo.
This confab lasts all day. I am making a leap of faith here that he is actually meeting with all the other governors from all fifty states at this round-table event at Four Seasons.
He says on his schedule "executive round table" and sure enough, in D.C. scheduled the following day, Feb 26, is a massive event for all fifty governors, as well as a White House dinner on Sunday.
You have to ask why the president won't come down hard on union busting these days? He can't politically afford to be shunned by some of these turds. Nice huh? That would make Obama an "un" consensus builder.
The sweet irony of this event. I wonder if the Koch brothers will be there. I bet they will. Perfect time to just buy out the lot of them in a block. Like a 4-H event at the county fair.
Each governor can be brought into a corral and the business elites can bid on them. Tags on the ears; whole shebang.
It probably won't happen exactly like that.
There is a curious note in the press release. "Throughout the meeting, there also will be several "Governors-Only" sessions, providing governors the opportunity for dialoge on a variety of issues facing states."
This soft cheese sounds suspiciously similar to "no press invited or permitted." In that an "executive round-table" taking place today, sounds like it fits this bill rather nicely, I think there's a very good chance the governors are meeting in private, behind closed doors at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue.
As a citizen taxpayer I would love to see plenty of signs and protesters out front of the hotel. But, alas, they have us right where they want us. Lethargy at a high, along with $5 a gallon gas.
Show up if you can.
Before you've had your coffee he's doing an interview at Bloomberg television. He will deliver canned answers about delivering 700,000 jobs, while somehow slip-sliding around the fact he just threw away 24,000.
Then he's sliding over to the Marriott for a chat with the EDC of the entire nation. It's an economic development committee or council. You've hung around county politics long enough and you've run into one of these curious creatures called an Economic Development Council; quasi-business, quasi-public body. No oversight. They get paid taxpayer money, often to cut and facilitate deals that the taxpayer never sees one dime of in return.
Next he's off to the confab of governors held at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue. Looks like a nice place from Street View, and the rooms are swanky doo.
This confab lasts all day. I am making a leap of faith here that he is actually meeting with all the other governors from all fifty states at this round-table event at Four Seasons.
He says on his schedule "executive round table" and sure enough, in D.C. scheduled the following day, Feb 26, is a massive event for all fifty governors, as well as a White House dinner on Sunday.
You have to ask why the president won't come down hard on union busting these days? He can't politically afford to be shunned by some of these turds. Nice huh? That would make Obama an "un" consensus builder.
The sweet irony of this event. I wonder if the Koch brothers will be there. I bet they will. Perfect time to just buy out the lot of them in a block. Like a 4-H event at the county fair.
Each governor can be brought into a corral and the business elites can bid on them. Tags on the ears; whole shebang.
It probably won't happen exactly like that.
There is a curious note in the press release. "Throughout the meeting, there also will be several "Governors-Only" sessions, providing governors the opportunity for dialoge on a variety of issues facing states."
This soft cheese sounds suspiciously similar to "no press invited or permitted." In that an "executive round-table" taking place today, sounds like it fits this bill rather nicely, I think there's a very good chance the governors are meeting in private, behind closed doors at the Four Seasons on Pennsylvania Avenue.
As a citizen taxpayer I would love to see plenty of signs and protesters out front of the hotel. But, alas, they have us right where they want us. Lethargy at a high, along with $5 a gallon gas.
Show up if you can.
WE (the sane) DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM
Not to micturate on my betters but I have had it. Big media, listen up.
WE THE SANE, OF FLORIDA, DIDN'T VOTE FOR RICK SCOTT, and you damned well know it.
Furthermore, you damned well know there are more sane voters in this state than there are the insane variety. There are more people of modest means than your country-clubbing, frothing Teapawns.
What I am driving at is, you damned well know there is every reason to suspect that vote was stolen by Diebold voting machines on behalf of the corporate construct. Hacked!
Last night on MSNBC, Cenk Ygur had a snooty woman on from The Nation. I didn't catch her name, and I don't take issue with her points, that this rapine of the middle class by the corporations has to stop. No what irked me, was how easily she spread the pervasive lie that we here in Florida don't know how to vote properly. It was done ever so artfully, sotto voce, with a touch of pity for us. She is only the latest.
"Those voters down in Florida...(tisk) what can they be thinking?" etc. etc. etc.
People in the northeast can be just as gullible as your barnyard yahoo in fly-over-land. They just don't know it. They are no different, they are no better. Just as ignorant at times, and - again, at times - twice as blinded by their own narcissistic, self importance.
To that woman, dressed ever so prim; for her feigned, well-perfumed earnestness, for all her contrived sadness and insipid pity for those of us down here on the short-bus farm, I say "Dear, we, are you! Don't you get that? Or are you pretending to be this ignorant?"
Wherever do the New Yorkers and New Englanders go, when they have had enough of those wonderful winters? They come here. When they have been here four months or so, we call them, legally, 'our fellow Floridians.'
"Down in Florida. Down in Floriduh...etc. etc." Yes, yes, very nice. So creative of you. Go on, have your fun. But you are only demonstrating your obliviousness as to the way of things. And in so doing, you are falling into the very stereotype of the huffy, clueless, pseudo intellectual, committed to their own insular, ( and did I mention clueless?) art-show-hopping, Manhattan, limousine liberal world, that most "folks down here...y'all" just love so well.
In other words, your stupidity is getting us nowhere.
The myth we don't vote well down here, works to the advantage to the vast corporate machine that has stolen our democracy. Yes, stolen it. It's gone. Has been gone for some time.
So goes Floriduh, so goes the nation, in the last three out of four. Am I wrong?
Those working in larger media never permit themselves to dare think, or speak "heavens no, children. Shhhhhhh.. mustn't speak its name" about what happened in 2000.
They never summon the gonadal resolve to look at the fact that 16,022 votes were cast backwards, in the race that handed the nation to George W. Bush, over Al Gore. Not under-votes, not no-votes, the votes cast themselves backwards! Not even quantum physics can explain.....(sigh.)
While the nation was watching people in Palm Beach counting chads, and giggling over those left hanging, THE VOTE HAD BEEN HACKED, ABSOLUTELY FORNICATED IN VOLUSIA COUNTY. Those in large media glaze over when you mention this, "what? what's that? Huh.....never mind." because they helped divert national attention to the chads. How cute, They're "chads" and they hang.
Of course. Yes, I hear you, and I agree wholeheartedly. The backwoods, nay-bob, bureaucratic thuggery of sleepy out-of-the-way county offices, helped to the cover the tracks of the guilty, as well.
But for one woman named Bev Harris, who summoned a whirlwind of support to show that Diebold lies, and Diebold is HACKABLE. She even appeared in a movie about it called Hacking Democracy, THAT MANY OF YOU IN THE MEDIA DAMNED WELL SAW AND YOU KNOW IT, SO A MENTION FROM TIME TO TIME WOULD BE NICE!! It's not like HBO doesn't have a viewership.
The hack apparently happened again in 2006, only this time, the systems were ES and S. 18,000 under-votes, suspiciously on touch screen, no paper trail voting machines in Sarasota County. This handed a congressional seat to the people's non-choice, according to thorough, independent studies. See our previous post for the whole story.
The truth is, there are only three or four players in this market making scan readers and touch screen systems. The code doesn't appreciably change. And the hack is essentially child's play to those who have a modicum of programming and the ability to do some research.
The narrative "Florida=stupid" is the underbelly, it is the blind spot by which corporations continue to steal our votes from us. By that I mean all of us, dear.
Sadly, no pundit on national television wants the mammillary vice; the next morning with management discussing how they "cast doubt" on the voting process on national television. Bad juju.
They are too cozy, these pundits. Their salaries are immense. Their egos too well-fed.
And the democratic party, apparently, makes use of these hackable machines, as well, in other parts of the country. So whether you're FOX or MSNBC, you're not going to want to go and piss off one of the two super-parties by admitting what everyone knows. That our votes in key states, are a farce.
You combine the governor of Wisconsin's recent "punking" with the coordinated attack by he, and five other newly elected Koch-govs, like the one we have here in Rick Scott, and you have more than a problem.
You review recent history, how Wall Street itself was hacked, and how that bubble didn't just grow organically but was fertilized like mad reefer in a lab. You look at how the process that led us to war was hacked,as was the 2000 election and you have to come to the conclusion we are in some seriously deep trouble. The fallibility has handed us to a runaway, mad crazy corporate balance sheet that makes us enemies by the second abroad, that does unspeakable horror in our name everywhere on the planet.
Little Ms. Sanctimony speaking with Cenk on MSNBC, tisking about Florida voters is a front, a placative lie, masking a fatal flaw in our entire system that we so charmingly call "free democracy".
Let's stop lying to ourselves. And please, for the love of God, stop using my state as the scapegoat.
WE THE SANE, OF FLORIDA, DIDN'T VOTE FOR RICK SCOTT, and you damned well know it.
Furthermore, you damned well know there are more sane voters in this state than there are the insane variety. There are more people of modest means than your country-clubbing, frothing Teapawns.
What I am driving at is, you damned well know there is every reason to suspect that vote was stolen by Diebold voting machines on behalf of the corporate construct. Hacked!
Last night on MSNBC, Cenk Ygur had a snooty woman on from The Nation. I didn't catch her name, and I don't take issue with her points, that this rapine of the middle class by the corporations has to stop. No what irked me, was how easily she spread the pervasive lie that we here in Florida don't know how to vote properly. It was done ever so artfully, sotto voce, with a touch of pity for us. She is only the latest.
"Those voters down in Florida...(tisk) what can they be thinking?" etc. etc. etc.
People in the northeast can be just as gullible as your barnyard yahoo in fly-over-land. They just don't know it. They are no different, they are no better. Just as ignorant at times, and - again, at times - twice as blinded by their own narcissistic, self importance.
To that woman, dressed ever so prim; for her feigned, well-perfumed earnestness, for all her contrived sadness and insipid pity for those of us down here on the short-bus farm, I say "Dear, we, are you! Don't you get that? Or are you pretending to be this ignorant?"
Wherever do the New Yorkers and New Englanders go, when they have had enough of those wonderful winters? They come here. When they have been here four months or so, we call them, legally, 'our fellow Floridians.'
"Down in Florida. Down in Floriduh...etc. etc." Yes, yes, very nice. So creative of you. Go on, have your fun. But you are only demonstrating your obliviousness as to the way of things. And in so doing, you are falling into the very stereotype of the huffy, clueless, pseudo intellectual, committed to their own insular, ( and did I mention clueless?) art-show-hopping, Manhattan, limousine liberal world, that most "folks down here...y'all" just love so well.
In other words, your stupidity is getting us nowhere.
The myth we don't vote well down here, works to the advantage to the vast corporate machine that has stolen our democracy. Yes, stolen it. It's gone. Has been gone for some time.
So goes Floriduh, so goes the nation, in the last three out of four. Am I wrong?
Those working in larger media never permit themselves to dare think, or speak "heavens no, children. Shhhhhhh.. mustn't speak its name" about what happened in 2000.
They never summon the gonadal resolve to look at the fact that 16,022 votes were cast backwards, in the race that handed the nation to George W. Bush, over Al Gore. Not under-votes, not no-votes, the votes cast themselves backwards! Not even quantum physics can explain.....(sigh.)
While the nation was watching people in Palm Beach counting chads, and giggling over those left hanging, THE VOTE HAD BEEN HACKED, ABSOLUTELY FORNICATED IN VOLUSIA COUNTY. Those in large media glaze over when you mention this, "what? what's that? Huh.....never mind." because they helped divert national attention to the chads. How cute, They're "chads" and they hang.
Of course. Yes, I hear you, and I agree wholeheartedly. The backwoods, nay-bob, bureaucratic thuggery of sleepy out-of-the-way county offices, helped to the cover the tracks of the guilty, as well.
But for one woman named Bev Harris, who summoned a whirlwind of support to show that Diebold lies, and Diebold is HACKABLE. She even appeared in a movie about it called Hacking Democracy, THAT MANY OF YOU IN THE MEDIA DAMNED WELL SAW AND YOU KNOW IT, SO A MENTION FROM TIME TO TIME WOULD BE NICE!! It's not like HBO doesn't have a viewership.
The hack apparently happened again in 2006, only this time, the systems were ES and S. 18,000 under-votes, suspiciously on touch screen, no paper trail voting machines in Sarasota County. This handed a congressional seat to the people's non-choice, according to thorough, independent studies. See our previous post for the whole story.
The truth is, there are only three or four players in this market making scan readers and touch screen systems. The code doesn't appreciably change. And the hack is essentially child's play to those who have a modicum of programming and the ability to do some research.
The narrative "Florida=stupid" is the underbelly, it is the blind spot by which corporations continue to steal our votes from us. By that I mean all of us, dear.
Sadly, no pundit on national television wants the mammillary vice; the next morning with management discussing how they "cast doubt" on the voting process on national television. Bad juju.
They are too cozy, these pundits. Their salaries are immense. Their egos too well-fed.
And the democratic party, apparently, makes use of these hackable machines, as well, in other parts of the country. So whether you're FOX or MSNBC, you're not going to want to go and piss off one of the two super-parties by admitting what everyone knows. That our votes in key states, are a farce.
You combine the governor of Wisconsin's recent "punking" with the coordinated attack by he, and five other newly elected Koch-govs, like the one we have here in Rick Scott, and you have more than a problem.
You review recent history, how Wall Street itself was hacked, and how that bubble didn't just grow organically but was fertilized like mad reefer in a lab. You look at how the process that led us to war was hacked,as was the 2000 election and you have to come to the conclusion we are in some seriously deep trouble. The fallibility has handed us to a runaway, mad crazy corporate balance sheet that makes us enemies by the second abroad, that does unspeakable horror in our name everywhere on the planet.
Little Ms. Sanctimony speaking with Cenk on MSNBC, tisking about Florida voters is a front, a placative lie, masking a fatal flaw in our entire system that we so charmingly call "free democracy".
Let's stop lying to ourselves. And please, for the love of God, stop using my state as the scapegoat.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Rick Scott's Published Schedule is a Farce
Government in the Sunshine. Florida officials have prided themselves on transparency over the years.
At least outwardly.
Of late, however, there is a Corpservative movement to do away with it. Too cumbersome to have to ask who one can meet with, under what legal circumstances, and need the press be there?
RILAB people, your "run it like a business" crowd have been rapidly eroding one of our state's hallowed rules, both in legal practice, and in spirit.
Under the guise of "getting things done with greater efficiency" deals are being made, without the consent or oversight of the people. No democracy. Ram it through.
Governor Scott's move to do away with Florida's state aircraft, selling them cheap rather than even storing them until the market for executive jets improves, thus making a better deal for the taxpayers who bought them, is nothing short of a Sunshine Law work-around.
Notice how it was his first order of business. Get rid of the damned things before anyone could protest it; before a legal challenge could rise up forcing the governor to conduct his travel in a state vehicle, so that the public, by way of the media, could ride along from time to time.
Can't have that.
His schedule, his itinerary or whatever you want to call it, so too, is an example of his disdain for openness.
Printing a schedule "day of" he is thumbing his nose at the media charged with following him, and the voters of this state who might want to put up a sign or two protesting these drastic cuts to budgets. Not to mention those who want to have a word with him about his nixing a high speed rail deal that has been in the planning for years.
There is no question, we could use the work, use the money, we could use 24,000 jobs the project would bring, as in NOW.
Scott visited Embrear yesterday in Melbourne . Emraer is a Brazilian company that makes executive jets. They moved to Melbourne in 2009. By all indications are an excellent company that, according to Melbourne city officials brought at least 400 high paying jobs to the state, or will when they are built out.
The company enjoys the tight security provided by Melbourne International Airport. You see Northrup-Grumman make weapons drones, surveillance aircraft, remotely operated attack helicopters and so on, and they share the other side of the property. So any sort of protest can immediately be put down by the airport PD and the Department of Homeland Security. Even if someone knew the governor would be there, which was a tightly held secret apparently, good luck holding up your sign before the gang tackle.
The governor zipped in and then zipped out again, mumbling a few words on high speed rail, how it was too wasteful, and potentially debt heavy for the state. His mind, made up; despite assurances from our duly elected senator from Central Florida, Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) that the taxpayer would be off the hook for any massive debts, since cost overrruns have been assigned to the contractors.
There are many who would disagree with the governor. Twenty four thousand jobs and $2.4 billion stand to be lost to California by Friday, simply because Governor Scott and Senator Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) are busy campaigning against President Obama, and sidling up to the Koch brothers, who run their Tea-pawns through "Americans For Prosperity", Inc.
It is a political sham, a travesty. When he campaigned and promised 700,000 new jobs, did he mean he would select the type of jobs, specifically, or did he mean the balance of those new jobs would be "created" but would reside in Chinese labor camps, with only the managers, or top level engineers, residing in Florida?
Are 24,000 construction and engineering jobs not the sort of jobs he wants for Florida? Is there an issue of unions getting even one dime of that money, and that's the reason he is so dead set against them?
Jobs are jobs. Are they not?
We have no problem paying union labor to send shuttles into space since 1981. What gives?
If you want to talk to or protest your governor, good luck. It's "catch as catch can". Sure he complies with the letter of the law if not the spirit and intent. He has to publish as schedule. We should be thankful for the baby steps, I suppose.
Day-of, doesn't cut it, at all. Be sure to tell him so.
At least outwardly.
Of late, however, there is a Corpservative movement to do away with it. Too cumbersome to have to ask who one can meet with, under what legal circumstances, and need the press be there?
RILAB people, your "run it like a business" crowd have been rapidly eroding one of our state's hallowed rules, both in legal practice, and in spirit.
Under the guise of "getting things done with greater efficiency" deals are being made, without the consent or oversight of the people. No democracy. Ram it through.
Governor Scott's move to do away with Florida's state aircraft, selling them cheap rather than even storing them until the market for executive jets improves, thus making a better deal for the taxpayers who bought them, is nothing short of a Sunshine Law work-around.
Notice how it was his first order of business. Get rid of the damned things before anyone could protest it; before a legal challenge could rise up forcing the governor to conduct his travel in a state vehicle, so that the public, by way of the media, could ride along from time to time.
Can't have that.
His schedule, his itinerary or whatever you want to call it, so too, is an example of his disdain for openness.
Printing a schedule "day of" he is thumbing his nose at the media charged with following him, and the voters of this state who might want to put up a sign or two protesting these drastic cuts to budgets. Not to mention those who want to have a word with him about his nixing a high speed rail deal that has been in the planning for years.
There is no question, we could use the work, use the money, we could use 24,000 jobs the project would bring, as in NOW.
Scott visited Embrear yesterday in Melbourne . Emraer is a Brazilian company that makes executive jets. They moved to Melbourne in 2009. By all indications are an excellent company that, according to Melbourne city officials brought at least 400 high paying jobs to the state, or will when they are built out.
The company enjoys the tight security provided by Melbourne International Airport. You see Northrup-Grumman make weapons drones, surveillance aircraft, remotely operated attack helicopters and so on, and they share the other side of the property. So any sort of protest can immediately be put down by the airport PD and the Department of Homeland Security. Even if someone knew the governor would be there, which was a tightly held secret apparently, good luck holding up your sign before the gang tackle.
The governor zipped in and then zipped out again, mumbling a few words on high speed rail, how it was too wasteful, and potentially debt heavy for the state. His mind, made up; despite assurances from our duly elected senator from Central Florida, Bill Nelson (D-Orlando) that the taxpayer would be off the hook for any massive debts, since cost overrruns have been assigned to the contractors.
There are many who would disagree with the governor. Twenty four thousand jobs and $2.4 billion stand to be lost to California by Friday, simply because Governor Scott and Senator Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) are busy campaigning against President Obama, and sidling up to the Koch brothers, who run their Tea-pawns through "Americans For Prosperity", Inc.
It is a political sham, a travesty. When he campaigned and promised 700,000 new jobs, did he mean he would select the type of jobs, specifically, or did he mean the balance of those new jobs would be "created" but would reside in Chinese labor camps, with only the managers, or top level engineers, residing in Florida?
Are 24,000 construction and engineering jobs not the sort of jobs he wants for Florida? Is there an issue of unions getting even one dime of that money, and that's the reason he is so dead set against them?
Jobs are jobs. Are they not?
We have no problem paying union labor to send shuttles into space since 1981. What gives?
If you want to talk to or protest your governor, good luck. It's "catch as catch can". Sure he complies with the letter of the law if not the spirit and intent. He has to publish as schedule. We should be thankful for the baby steps, I suppose.
Day-of, doesn't cut it, at all. Be sure to tell him so.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Stock Tip: "Scott's Sec. of State LOVES touch screen voting."
Oh yes he does. Do you wonder why? I don't.
In 2000 Florida decided the presidential election.Arguably it did so again in 2004.
But in 2000 George W. Bush was chosen over Al Gore in the slimmest margin in Florida and U.S.history, some guesses placed it as a matter of 1,500 some odd votes. At first, Volusia county counted Al's 16,022 votes backwards. This was corrected but the reason for the error was never disclosed.
The vote decided the course of world history. And many believe Diebold systems, both through their Opti-scans machines, and touch screens, were the reason.
In 2006 a film crew from a group were working on a documentary entitled Hacking Democracy. They employed consultant Dr. Hugh Thompson, and software engineer Hari Hursti. Hursti hacked the file card of a Leon county optical scan voting machine, made by Diebold, Inc.
Diebold of course issues bland, non-specific denials of the now famous "Hursti Hack" to this day.
Here's the hack, in a snippet.
Here's essentially the same hack perpetrated on the Diebold touch screen system, featured on Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs was exited from CNN in 2009, Pilgrim hasn't been evident much on CNN since.
Did you hear that? NO PAPER TRAIL! The thing with the optiscan system is, at least you have the paper with the dots on them. Not with touch screen. No record, whatsoever. An election rigger's dream.
Here's our current secretary of state Kurt Browning. This film is from 2006. He admits here that he is the first election supervisor (Pasco County) to push for the implementation of the touch screen voting system and he remains committed to it. Hell yes, let's a have more of those babies.
He seems to be urging election supervisors to exude confidence for the voting system, despite what they may know about them. He doesn't mention the fact that both touchscreen and opti scan systems rely on the same cards, which are shown to be hackable, first by Hursti and secondly by Princeton.
Wild that the whole thing can be subverted by a single key for all machines, copied at Home Depot, and that the centralized counting machine can serve to replicate and pass the virus.
Perhaps some bright bulb will get the idea that to finally show the Diebold systems for what they are, election stealing compilers or nodes, all that need happen is for a massive hack, yielding a negative result for all of the above, handing the election to a write in candidate, someone's parrot...or cat.
But it's not just a Diebold problem. With no paper trail, and easy access and without the need to go mashing empty ballots into a box - hey that's time consuming - these things are ready made to hack the vote!
In 2006 there was a problem noted with the District 13 congressional vote in the race contended for the seat vacated by former Sec. of State Kathrine Harris. There was a record number of under votes, 18,000 in Sarasota County, all using touch screen voting machines. That means there was no vote, no choice in one out of seven ballots cast using the touch screens. Many voters reported on irregularities at the polling place in early voting by the ES and S touch screen systems. You mash on a button, nothing happens, or you look down only to find the congressional race you were trying to vote on, never appeared and you're done.
In this video David Drury, now Rick Scott's voter systems certifications director, is seen requesting that the canvassing board permit ES and S, this is the corporation that made the suspect voting machines and installed the code used to count the votes, be permitted to audit the vote DURING THE RECOUNT to "search for any irregularities" in the code or the machines.(?)
Also present for this machine recount is (ta da) Kurt Browning, then Pasco County elections supervisor, now Secretary of State for Rick Scott. Here Browning opines in this clip that 18,000 voters, were either 1. disgusted with their choices or 2. didn't adequately review their ballot.
This falls in nicely with the "Floridians are too stupid to vote" narrative that gosh golly jumps up whenever something goes haywire with our elections.
Oh, the election result was decided in Sarasota Count as a matter of 369 votes, and Buchanan still holds the District 13 congressional seat. Jennings tried to unseat him in 2008 but was unsuccessful and was also bogged down in court trying to get the election result overturned.
Funny thing was, the lawsuit that came about between their first battle and the second was inconclusive since, the lawyers for the touch screen voting company ES and S were able to invoke trade secret protections, aided in no small part by help from the Department of State and a mock vote on identical machines, conducted by the Sarasota County supervisor of elections, under the careful direction of the company. The reason for such a massive under-vote remains unknown. If you read at the last link you see there were numerous studies that demonstrated the people's choice, did not fill the seat in congress.
Vernon Buchanan was voted one of the most corrupt congress people by Crews Most Corrupt but that might be a little harsh. This organization basically said that he 'urged' his team to contribute to his campaign and then rewarded them with automobiles from his car dealerships.
He is a proponent of cutting wasteful spending and the balanced budget amendment.
Back to Rick Scott, Kurt Browning and David Drury.
Kurt Browning was selected by Governor Scott to come back into the game as his secretary of state. He had resigned last May which makes him eligible for Florida's DROP program. You leave your position, retire for six months, you can come back and get re-appointed AND take your retirement at the same time. His pension is valued at $500,000 or thereabouts.
David Drury now is found in the of governor Scott's Org Chart as director of voter systems certification. This is about where he was in 2006.
Here he is being grilled by a commission in Sarasota on state testing for vulnerabilities for state voting machines, prior to certification of the system. He says that no extraordinary measures are taken to certify that the system isn't hackable. He mentions the Hursti hack was something out of the ordinary. It makes you wonder why on earth his office even exists in the modern age.
It makes you wonder about the slim margin between Alex Sink and Rick Scott, oh yes it does.
In 2000 Florida decided the presidential election.Arguably it did so again in 2004.
But in 2000 George W. Bush was chosen over Al Gore in the slimmest margin in Florida and U.S.history, some guesses placed it as a matter of 1,500 some odd votes. At first, Volusia county counted Al's 16,022 votes backwards. This was corrected but the reason for the error was never disclosed.
The vote decided the course of world history. And many believe Diebold systems, both through their Opti-scans machines, and touch screens, were the reason.
In 2006 a film crew from a group were working on a documentary entitled Hacking Democracy. They employed consultant Dr. Hugh Thompson, and software engineer Hari Hursti. Hursti hacked the file card of a Leon county optical scan voting machine, made by Diebold, Inc.
Diebold of course issues bland, non-specific denials of the now famous "Hursti Hack" to this day.
Here's the hack, in a snippet.
Here's essentially the same hack perpetrated on the Diebold touch screen system, featured on Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs was exited from CNN in 2009, Pilgrim hasn't been evident much on CNN since.
Did you hear that? NO PAPER TRAIL! The thing with the optiscan system is, at least you have the paper with the dots on them. Not with touch screen. No record, whatsoever. An election rigger's dream.
Here's our current secretary of state Kurt Browning. This film is from 2006. He admits here that he is the first election supervisor (Pasco County) to push for the implementation of the touch screen voting system and he remains committed to it. Hell yes, let's a have more of those babies.
He seems to be urging election supervisors to exude confidence for the voting system, despite what they may know about them. He doesn't mention the fact that both touchscreen and opti scan systems rely on the same cards, which are shown to be hackable, first by Hursti and secondly by Princeton.
Wild that the whole thing can be subverted by a single key for all machines, copied at Home Depot, and that the centralized counting machine can serve to replicate and pass the virus.
Perhaps some bright bulb will get the idea that to finally show the Diebold systems for what they are, election stealing compilers or nodes, all that need happen is for a massive hack, yielding a negative result for all of the above, handing the election to a write in candidate, someone's parrot...or cat.
But it's not just a Diebold problem. With no paper trail, and easy access and without the need to go mashing empty ballots into a box - hey that's time consuming - these things are ready made to hack the vote!
In 2006 there was a problem noted with the District 13 congressional vote in the race contended for the seat vacated by former Sec. of State Kathrine Harris. There was a record number of under votes, 18,000 in Sarasota County, all using touch screen voting machines. That means there was no vote, no choice in one out of seven ballots cast using the touch screens. Many voters reported on irregularities at the polling place in early voting by the ES and S touch screen systems. You mash on a button, nothing happens, or you look down only to find the congressional race you were trying to vote on, never appeared and you're done.
In this video David Drury, now Rick Scott's voter systems certifications director, is seen requesting that the canvassing board permit ES and S, this is the corporation that made the suspect voting machines and installed the code used to count the votes, be permitted to audit the vote DURING THE RECOUNT to "search for any irregularities" in the code or the machines.(?)
Also present for this machine recount is (ta da) Kurt Browning, then Pasco County elections supervisor, now Secretary of State for Rick Scott. Here Browning opines in this clip that 18,000 voters, were either 1. disgusted with their choices or 2. didn't adequately review their ballot.
This falls in nicely with the "Floridians are too stupid to vote" narrative that gosh golly jumps up whenever something goes haywire with our elections.
Oh, the election result was decided in Sarasota Count as a matter of 369 votes, and Buchanan still holds the District 13 congressional seat. Jennings tried to unseat him in 2008 but was unsuccessful and was also bogged down in court trying to get the election result overturned.
Funny thing was, the lawsuit that came about between their first battle and the second was inconclusive since, the lawyers for the touch screen voting company ES and S were able to invoke trade secret protections, aided in no small part by help from the Department of State and a mock vote on identical machines, conducted by the Sarasota County supervisor of elections, under the careful direction of the company. The reason for such a massive under-vote remains unknown. If you read at the last link you see there were numerous studies that demonstrated the people's choice, did not fill the seat in congress.
Vernon Buchanan was voted one of the most corrupt congress people by Crews Most Corrupt but that might be a little harsh. This organization basically said that he 'urged' his team to contribute to his campaign and then rewarded them with automobiles from his car dealerships.
He is a proponent of cutting wasteful spending and the balanced budget amendment.
Back to Rick Scott, Kurt Browning and David Drury.
Kurt Browning was selected by Governor Scott to come back into the game as his secretary of state. He had resigned last May which makes him eligible for Florida's DROP program. You leave your position, retire for six months, you can come back and get re-appointed AND take your retirement at the same time. His pension is valued at $500,000 or thereabouts.
David Drury now is found in the of governor Scott's Org Chart as director of voter systems certification. This is about where he was in 2006.
Here he is being grilled by a commission in Sarasota on state testing for vulnerabilities for state voting machines, prior to certification of the system. He says that no extraordinary measures are taken to certify that the system isn't hackable. He mentions the Hursti hack was something out of the ordinary. It makes you wonder why on earth his office even exists in the modern age.
It makes you wonder about the slim margin between Alex Sink and Rick Scott, oh yes it does.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
High Speed #Fail. What can he be thinking?
The Libertarian Party and The Reason Foundation are now driving the train of government.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tiger Mom Fetish Reaches Florida Schools
Tiger Mothers are the Best!
Or, are they?
This is the governor's "informal advisor" on education Michelle Rhee telling her duly elected council of District of Columbia Schools why she fired 229 teachers without the authority of to do so; essentially flouting the law that took hold the moment they, the council, voted on a budget and passed it.
It is amazing to anyone who has reported on a meeting involving a commission and an subordinate executive.
I tried to understand why this woman is such a hero to Corpservatives. Knowing my adversary, I took the groin approach first and assumed it was because she's kinda hot, she's young, pretty, prim, efficient and she's Asian. I assumed some of my state legislators likely don't know the difference between her and Tiger Mom author Amy Chua, and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin.
Oh, come on. You thought it too. Get over yourself.
But give them credit. Here we see the reason she's the Corpservative it-girl, their new Maverick. Michelle Rhee doesn't care one wit, what the elected legislative body has decided, she's going to do things her way. A CEO, not an executive working for voters. An anti-democrat.
Welcome to the machine.
That's why Rick Scott loves her. That's why she's his "informal education advisor" because this is how he plans handling not only education, but his entire state. That's right HIS state. Just like Rhee thought D.C. Public Schools was HER school system.
A polarizing force in D.C. schools? How many lawsuits began flying after she enacted a unilateral layoff, a constitutional workaround?
Rhee is the kewpie of the Corpservative right.
Let's explore the Tiger Mom thing; the fetish part of it that my mostly male, clueless, republican state legislature is responding to. The groin.
You'd have to be dim not to have noticed. There is a movement, currently, to applaud hot young, opinionated conservative women, particularly Asian women, to usher them to the forefront in the conservative movement. Sure, credit where credit is due, hard work, smarts, looks, being articulate, driven and the rest, go right along with it.
But some of this craze - Asian women are like the Beatles for aging conservative men - is agenda driven, at a very deep level. From within the Corporate machine itself. It goes beyond democrat and republican, its part of a corporate plan. Fear any trend, these days. Not the people, not the race, not the party. Fear any trend shoved down your throat. Oh sure, this conservative love for smart Asian women? Yeppers. Thats being shoved in my face and I am not sure why.
Chinese American Amy Chua admits here, that the title of her book Why Tiger Mothers are Superior, was an unsubtle surprise from her publisher, and really not her choice. She said it resulted from the publicity machine that knew just the right note to hit, in this politically charged environment, and then promptly went nuts driving the point home. You know the message: that tolerant loving American moms who nurture and let their little girls play, don't have good outcomes. Even though Ms. Chua keeps trying to tell everyone that this isn't the point of her book. That there's as much danger in tough love as reward.
No matter. No one's listening, dear. The machine has spoken and it wants conflict and fear.
Enter Michelle Rhee, who spoke out very strongly against Florida school teachers exuding legislators to "empower parents" against them, not two days ago in Tallahassee. Read: "smash the unions". The news that, somehow, Florida teachers are suddenly incredibly lacking in every way imaginable, came despite Rhee never having observed one single session, in a Florida classroom.
Rhee was featured in the film Waiting for Superman in which as Chancellor for D.C. schools, she admits she "knows kids are getting a bad education." Bam, there goes the machine. Look she's a star!
And of course the uber right's perennial darling, Michelle Malkin, the product of private schools, Philippine heritage married to an analyst for the Rand Corporation. Or is Jesse Dylan Malkin a former analyst for the Rand Corporation, sort of the way a CIA agent is a "former" member, but you never really know?
In any event, you may remember the RAND Corporation in the conspiracy folklore, as having produced the spooky study for the White House, years back that basically said war is good, and if you get rid of it, you lose control over humanity and it promptly destroys itself. The work, whose authenticity has been spookily disputed in non-denials, and just as spookily non-authenticated, over and over, so many times one can't keep it straight anymore, is called, ominously - and spookily - The Report from Iron Mountain.
If you wondering where this petite woman's fire comes from, all that venom, all the angst against peacenicks and demoncrats and what have you, every now and again ask yourself: "Self? Is the voice coming out of the idiot screen this morning, that of Michelle Malkin, or does it belong to the Rand Corporation?"
The Tiger Mom narrative is great. But surprisingly, Rhee doesn't sound much different than a thousand other functionaries at any number of county school board administrative offices, spouting school speak with relative ease, and really not saying anything. If you've taught school for any length of time, you've at least once found yourself in a room full of people gibbering this nonsense in combat volleys. No pills can keep out the suicide fantasies at moments like these. And for the rest of your life thereafter, you recognize school speakers instantly when you hear them. This is a school speaker. No matter how much she tries to tell you she's a maverick, she's got this patois down, baby. She's not so special at all. She's no different than the teachers she so effortlessly fires.
Nevertheless the machine wanted to speak again, and so it did and the RAND corporation would have been proud of the manufactured narrative. Subtext translations are added here for your perusal. It goes like this D.C. Schools (African American) got rid of this poor strident, and plugging along champion (Asian Ayn Rand) of self-accountability (patriotic goodness) who bucked a flawed system even though it was the constitutional one (meh, who cares).
Newly minted from the fray, here she is with FOX's Neil Cavuto, basking in his scintillating puff-ballery.
Of course only now do some of the other stories come out about her; that she was fond of taping students mouths shut in Brooklyn, or that she fudged her data to make herself look better and more accomplished in her methods. Really? NO teacher EVER does this. Pfft.
Are they true? Who knows.
The point is, none of these things playing on a national scale have the first damned thing to do with Florida Schools. We note that the fetish legislators all came out to applaud and gawk at missy lamb chops, and then totally avoided the education subcommittee votes and deliberations.
This while the district manager laid a whopping turd of a budget cut, some $3.3 billion, on the state's education system, all the while pointing to the D.C. problem, with pretty little Michelle Rhee, poor miss do-gooder trying so hard at his side, and somehow equating it to our own situation in Florida.
A clever reporter pointed out that far different than D.C., whose problems go back to the fact it doesn't belong to any state, it is an orphan in every way, Florida has battled back in recent years, advancing to the rank of 5 out of 50 states. As recently as 2000 Florida had been ranked in the bottom quarter.
As Ed Harris said in Apollo 13 "what do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" Well! Florida has got a healthy upwardly rising education system! That's what we got, Ed, er, Governor who looks a little like Ed in that movie!
But Rhee had a ready answer for that as well. It went like this: the United States of America ranks 29th in the developed world as far as education. Disgraceful.
Oh. I guess that's an answer, to some people, somewhere, who were charmed, and who saw that cool movie with you in it, and with music by John Legend. And he's really a mellow cat, so, what you just said must also be true, or at the very least relevant, right?
NAHT!
Or, are they?
This is the governor's "informal advisor" on education Michelle Rhee telling her duly elected council of District of Columbia Schools why she fired 229 teachers without the authority of to do so; essentially flouting the law that took hold the moment they, the council, voted on a budget and passed it.
It is amazing to anyone who has reported on a meeting involving a commission and an subordinate executive.
I tried to understand why this woman is such a hero to Corpservatives. Knowing my adversary, I took the groin approach first and assumed it was because she's kinda hot, she's young, pretty, prim, efficient and she's Asian. I assumed some of my state legislators likely don't know the difference between her and Tiger Mom author Amy Chua, and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin.
Oh, come on. You thought it too. Get over yourself.
But give them credit. Here we see the reason she's the Corpservative it-girl, their new Maverick. Michelle Rhee doesn't care one wit, what the elected legislative body has decided, she's going to do things her way. A CEO, not an executive working for voters. An anti-democrat.
Welcome to the machine.
That's why Rick Scott loves her. That's why she's his "informal education advisor" because this is how he plans handling not only education, but his entire state. That's right HIS state. Just like Rhee thought D.C. Public Schools was HER school system.
A polarizing force in D.C. schools? How many lawsuits began flying after she enacted a unilateral layoff, a constitutional workaround?
Rhee is the kewpie of the Corpservative right.
Let's explore the Tiger Mom thing; the fetish part of it that my mostly male, clueless, republican state legislature is responding to. The groin.
You'd have to be dim not to have noticed. There is a movement, currently, to applaud hot young, opinionated conservative women, particularly Asian women, to usher them to the forefront in the conservative movement. Sure, credit where credit is due, hard work, smarts, looks, being articulate, driven and the rest, go right along with it.
But some of this craze - Asian women are like the Beatles for aging conservative men - is agenda driven, at a very deep level. From within the Corporate machine itself. It goes beyond democrat and republican, its part of a corporate plan. Fear any trend, these days. Not the people, not the race, not the party. Fear any trend shoved down your throat. Oh sure, this conservative love for smart Asian women? Yeppers. Thats being shoved in my face and I am not sure why.
Chinese American Amy Chua admits here, that the title of her book Why Tiger Mothers are Superior, was an unsubtle surprise from her publisher, and really not her choice. She said it resulted from the publicity machine that knew just the right note to hit, in this politically charged environment, and then promptly went nuts driving the point home. You know the message: that tolerant loving American moms who nurture and let their little girls play, don't have good outcomes. Even though Ms. Chua keeps trying to tell everyone that this isn't the point of her book. That there's as much danger in tough love as reward.
No matter. No one's listening, dear. The machine has spoken and it wants conflict and fear.
Enter Michelle Rhee, who spoke out very strongly against Florida school teachers exuding legislators to "empower parents" against them, not two days ago in Tallahassee. Read: "smash the unions". The news that, somehow, Florida teachers are suddenly incredibly lacking in every way imaginable, came despite Rhee never having observed one single session, in a Florida classroom.
Rhee was featured in the film Waiting for Superman in which as Chancellor for D.C. schools, she admits she "knows kids are getting a bad education." Bam, there goes the machine. Look she's a star!
And of course the uber right's perennial darling, Michelle Malkin, the product of private schools, Philippine heritage married to an analyst for the Rand Corporation. Or is Jesse Dylan Malkin a former analyst for the Rand Corporation, sort of the way a CIA agent is a "former" member, but you never really know?
In any event, you may remember the RAND Corporation in the conspiracy folklore, as having produced the spooky study for the White House, years back that basically said war is good, and if you get rid of it, you lose control over humanity and it promptly destroys itself. The work, whose authenticity has been spookily disputed in non-denials, and just as spookily non-authenticated, over and over, so many times one can't keep it straight anymore, is called, ominously - and spookily - The Report from Iron Mountain.
If you wondering where this petite woman's fire comes from, all that venom, all the angst against peacenicks and demoncrats and what have you, every now and again ask yourself: "Self? Is the voice coming out of the idiot screen this morning, that of Michelle Malkin, or does it belong to the Rand Corporation?"
The Tiger Mom narrative is great. But surprisingly, Rhee doesn't sound much different than a thousand other functionaries at any number of county school board administrative offices, spouting school speak with relative ease, and really not saying anything. If you've taught school for any length of time, you've at least once found yourself in a room full of people gibbering this nonsense in combat volleys. No pills can keep out the suicide fantasies at moments like these. And for the rest of your life thereafter, you recognize school speakers instantly when you hear them. This is a school speaker. No matter how much she tries to tell you she's a maverick, she's got this patois down, baby. She's not so special at all. She's no different than the teachers she so effortlessly fires.
Nevertheless the machine wanted to speak again, and so it did and the RAND corporation would have been proud of the manufactured narrative. Subtext translations are added here for your perusal. It goes like this D.C. Schools (African American) got rid of this poor strident, and plugging along champion (Asian Ayn Rand) of self-accountability (patriotic goodness) who bucked a flawed system even though it was the constitutional one (meh, who cares).
Newly minted from the fray, here she is with FOX's Neil Cavuto, basking in his scintillating puff-ballery.
Of course only now do some of the other stories come out about her; that she was fond of taping students mouths shut in Brooklyn, or that she fudged her data to make herself look better and more accomplished in her methods. Really? NO teacher EVER does this. Pfft.
Are they true? Who knows.
The point is, none of these things playing on a national scale have the first damned thing to do with Florida Schools. We note that the fetish legislators all came out to applaud and gawk at missy lamb chops, and then totally avoided the education subcommittee votes and deliberations.
This while the district manager laid a whopping turd of a budget cut, some $3.3 billion, on the state's education system, all the while pointing to the D.C. problem, with pretty little Michelle Rhee, poor miss do-gooder trying so hard at his side, and somehow equating it to our own situation in Florida.
A clever reporter pointed out that far different than D.C., whose problems go back to the fact it doesn't belong to any state, it is an orphan in every way, Florida has battled back in recent years, advancing to the rank of 5 out of 50 states. As recently as 2000 Florida had been ranked in the bottom quarter.
As Ed Harris said in Apollo 13 "what do we got on the spacecraft that's good?" Well! Florida has got a healthy upwardly rising education system! That's what we got, Ed, er, Governor who looks a little like Ed in that movie!
But Rhee had a ready answer for that as well. It went like this: the United States of America ranks 29th in the developed world as far as education. Disgraceful.
Oh. I guess that's an answer, to some people, somewhere, who were charmed, and who saw that cool movie with you in it, and with music by John Legend. And he's really a mellow cat, so, what you just said must also be true, or at the very least relevant, right?
NAHT!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Senator Jim DeMint's 'Freaky' Follows (Yes, he is following these people!)
Instructions: Go to Twitter, sign in with your account. Go to, and follow, if only for demonstration purposes, @JimDeMint.
Then, go to each of the following accounts, and look to the right and verify that Jim Demint, U.S. senator, who you now follow, is also following these tweeters. This of course will change, as the senator is made aware that you know he is following these folks.
You are who you follow, as they say. Relevance to Rick Scott? Well, Florida Governor Rick Scott follows Senator Marco Rubio. Senator Marco Rubio, who we have already featured, follows Senator Jim DeMint
And @JimDeMint follows these folks using his official account.
Feb. 15, 6.10 p.m. The following very nice tweeter communicates entirely in Portuguese. We have followed her, just as the senator has, merely for academic purposes and to learn more about her gorgeous country through the beauty of the Portuguese language that we will struggle valiantly with.
The senator is also following, or following back on his official U.S. Senatorial twitter feed as of Feb. 15, 6:21 p.m., this interesting artist.
@Only Share
The senator apparently appreciates the Portuguese language. We see here he is following this lovely young woman who also writes in English as well.
We have not selected and clicked on her word-press website. We are too afraid of what we will find. Feel free and report back.
The senator is also following someone named DA PUZZY LOVAS 1NC, on his official U.S. Senatorial twitter account, as well. as of Feb. 15, 6.28 p.m.
Here is a description ofDA PUZZY LOVAS 1NC.
Perhaps if the democratic senators had merely shown just a bit more skin?
Senator DeMint has also voiced opposition to homosexual teachers, and the presence of unmarried women who live with their boyfriends, unmarried!!!, teaching a room full of school children.
Hope you enjoyed this segment of "freaky follows" obviously a shameless attempt to drive traffic to this site, of little redeeming value other than entertainment.
Then, go to each of the following accounts, and look to the right and verify that Jim Demint, U.S. senator, who you now follow, is also following these tweeters. This of course will change, as the senator is made aware that you know he is following these folks.
You are who you follow, as they say. Relevance to Rick Scott? Well, Florida Governor Rick Scott follows Senator Marco Rubio. Senator Marco Rubio, who we have already featured, follows Senator Jim DeMint
And @JimDeMint follows these folks using his official account.
Feb. 15, 6.10 p.m. The following very nice tweeter communicates entirely in Portuguese. We have followed her, just as the senator has, merely for academic purposes and to learn more about her gorgeous country through the beauty of the Portuguese language that we will struggle valiantly with.
The senator is also following, or following back on his official U.S. Senatorial twitter feed as of Feb. 15, 6:21 p.m., this interesting artist.
@Only Share
autumn :(
Very nice. The following very nice tweeter knows a lot about Asia ....and real estate.
About Asia
@kesananh Viet Nam
The senator apparently appreciates the Portuguese language. We see here he is following this lovely young woman who also writes in English as well.
We have not selected and clicked on her word-press website. We are too afraid of what we will find. Feel free and report back.
The senator is also following someone named DA PUZZY LOVAS 1NC, on his official U.S. Senatorial twitter account, as well. as of Feb. 15, 6.28 p.m.
Here is a description ofDA PUZZY LOVAS 1NC.
@DaPuzzyLovas1nc TX.,GA.,CA.,FL.,& NY.
Perhaps if the democratic senators had merely shown just a bit more skin?
Senator DeMint has also voiced opposition to homosexual teachers, and the presence of unmarried women who live with their boyfriends, unmarried!!!, teaching a room full of school children.
Hope you enjoyed this segment of "freaky follows" obviously a shameless attempt to drive traffic to this site, of little redeeming value other than entertainment.
The Rick Scott plan: pay for jobs, charge the children
(Fair warning: I am going to ask you to do something at the end of this post.)
It's a shell game.
Tax is negative money. But it can be moved around like its positive counterpart. Watch the cards as they move. Nothing up my sleeve, gang. Who's a player?
Bean counters are good like that. They would never come out and say something so hideous as "Hey boys and girls, let's give massive tax breaks to weapons companies and make the children and the teachers of this state pay for it!"
No. They will give you a big spread sheet, and they will claim "no cuts are coming from the general fund to education." Meanwhile they are trying to change the game to reduce the property tax rate charged for schools at the local level to pay for those breaks.
To hear some people talk, and these would be the Rickologists, the Aynrandians who despise taxes and little children, corporations should never be taxed, for anything, ever. To these folks, corporations are really religious institutions, and how they love to worship.
Leave off education for just a minute. You don't suppose these corporations happen in a vacuum do you? Am I missing something? Do they not also benefit from police, fire, waste removal, electricity, city water and roads? Are not these services helpful to them as they achieve a profit? Shouldn't they pay for something?
Here's the shell game at work. An example of tax breaks, really not achieving anything of permanence, save some road realignment in one city.
The city of Melbourne Florida gave an initial tax break to a weapon's corp of $85,000 for it to move a division from a neighboring town, Palm Bay, about five mile to the south. The move was supposed to bring in 10 high paying new jobs, said Mayor Harry Goode, Jr. And the city council fell into line. And so did the large newspaper. The city also received a grant of $565,000 in state funds to make it happen with necessary road changes. Yay!
But it was embarrassingly revealed that another 17 high paying jobs were actually eliminated in the move.
Yes, they didn't want to say anything about that, until one of the people who had been fired, a woman who lost a job of $90,000 a year named Heike Albert, came before the Melbourne city council and said through her tears, " I can't understand why you are giving (the company) this money!"
Net result? Minus seven, high paying jobs. Egg on faces, priceless.
Hush little children. Don't think about that.
On the upside, many contracts for construction were opened. But this was 2009 and that money, the permitting fees and so on, has long since worked its way through the system. Well, apart from the loan interest which is still buzzing along, but banks still remain tight fisted with us so it hasn't seeped back out into circulation.
The high paying jobs, that were supposed to continue to sustain the economy? Minus seven. One city benefited slightly while the adjacent town, now has a nearly empty building, which had, originally, also been constructed, and its nearby traffic modified, with tax breaks, and state road grants.
The story is true. The company is DRS/Finmeccanica. This was one of the last news stories this writer ever worked on as a newspaper reporter. Coincidence? Who knows.
The point is, the people who got rich here remain nameless, and the extent to which they were enriched, so too. The most obvious beneficiary of taxpayer largess was the corporation that had no trouble canning another 17 employees while it was receiving a warm handshake for bringing in jobs.
Jobs.
Who can argue with that? What are you, a communist? You want to argue with a move that will "bring jobs" to the city? What's wrong with you?
Shell game.
More to the DRS story. DRS also receives more than $500,000 in additional tax breaks over the next five years. They sold out to an Italian firm, Finmeccanica in 2009 when all this atta-boy money lending, happened.
So the company that was raised up on the mother's milk of U.S. taxpayer money, and state taxpayer money for improvements, for bringing in jobs now is wholly-owned by an even bigger weapons company in Italy. And all the wonderful technological know-how, developed here in the USA, is now shared openly within NATO. The nations therein, may, or may not remain friendly to the United States of America. Who knows. Ain't it sweet? Make-work? You gotta love make-work.
And We the Sheeple, will be fed swill by the media, to placate us, and accustom us to this distasteful state of affairs; as corporate media never really pushes for Sunshine Laws. Very seldom, and only in the most glaringly obvious cases, is it ever enforced.
Back to taxes, and our education system.
When you decrease the amount of taxes going to pay for education, and then offer such massive tax breaks to the corporations you are asking the students to bear the brunt of it in the form of reduced educational opportunities.
The Rick Scotts and their parrots, all love it when the little guy, the loafer, the freeloader, gets slammed. And they really dig it when all the new jobs come in weapons fabrication. Not precisely sure what that is. Nearly a fetish for them, though, isn't it? It's damned near orgasmic to some so-called conservatives.
Rick Scott's budget is reprehensible. It is something so hideously evil, masked in some sort of self-righteous anger that makes mockery of alleged American values.
Little children, and terrorized teachers, and cheated parents, will pay for weapons manufacturing. That's how it will work out in the wash. I am fairly certain of it. They will ask you to sing the praise of God while they do it.
Who can argue the need for jobs? No one. But at the same time, who can argue the need and the right of every child to a decent, competitive public education? Rick and Co. can. And do! And apparently are doing so very successfully!
The level of outrage at this point is so mild. It crawls to call ourselves American at this point. We drag our own name through the mud, to suggest we are openly angry.
Notice our corporate invaders went right for education, first.
Would you move to a state that decided to screw up its own education system?
If you can afford private schools you would, sure. Maybe.
There's your answer. The continued division between the halves and the have-nots. The gap isn't wide enough to suit this crowd.
Where is your outrage these days? Where are you hiding it? If you are a teacher, do you love this Michelle Rhee character? What's up with her? Some failed administrator who was disgraced from two school districts is going to come in here and tell you how to do your job?
You school system has raised itself from down near bottom to within the top five in the country in very short order. It had everything to do with YOU doing your job and doing it well!
The level of documentation you must endure daily in the upkeep of our job is immense. Everything in triplicate. Your grades require instant updating on Ed-Line or whatever service it is you use.
Michelle Rhee stood up before your state legislators and urged them to make rules "empowering the parents" essentially pitting the parents against you. Who the hell is she? Does she know how empowered the parents are already? Has she stood toe-to-toe with a helicopter parent in a Florida classroom? Has she sat with an administrator in Florida while being coached on "not humiliating" Ginny or Johnny with this phrase "be quiet!" in lieu of something more palatable, like "we're all doing this now, honey. Would you like to join us?" No.
Rhee wants to pit the parents against the teacher, strip tenure out of the picture and turn students, parents and fellow teachers into intelligence gatherers for operation "removing bad teachers".
Doesn't this happen already? Are you not working your fingers to the bone as it is? Do you eat, walk, and breathe this stuff? Don't you dream and sweat about your kids and their grades in your sleep?
Under Rhee's and Scott's plan, who the hell would sign up for this teaching stuff? What fool would subject themselves to this torture masked as a profession?
Oh, but, that's the point then, isn't it. Privitize schools, charters, vouchers and so on. And of course, destroying a university system that is, at the moment, rising to world wide prominence.
Outsiders can't stand this. Can they? No. It goes against the narrative of "stupid Floriduh!" They can't abide anyone changing this stereotype.
If you mean to enslave a population, or make them leave, drive them from their education. Separate the young from their rightful opportunities to learn. Then bring in "more sensible" people from "the outside" and plant them in their place.
Disrupt a sense of state consciousness, state love or appreciation; state citizenry. Drones should not love where they come from. It makes it harder to move them about, doesn't it.
Colonization. Corporate colonization of course. The serfs are sent packing or asked to "bring me the grilled mahi, and a coke."
Teachers, professors, students, where are you balls? Are you going to sit there and take this shit?
Rick Scott, our governor, is slated to give the keynote speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Martin County on March 5. He will be appearing there as a guest of the Martin County GOP. The dinner starts at 5:30 and he is expected to speak at 7 p.m. Marriott Hutchinson Island is where this event is being held.
From U.S.1 in Stuart find 1-A Ocean Boulevard, headed east, continue east crossing St. Lucie River, to Sewell's Point, then continuing east over the Indian River. The large hotel complex on your right as you come over the second bridge is where the event is being held.
There is parking at Stuart Beach, located another half mile or so on to the east, past Elliot Museum and the Fire Station, both on your right.
The great part about this location is the abundant sidewalk in front of the resort, the footbridge for fishing, and the foot path along the bridge itself. This entire area couldn't be more perfect for holding up signs, from perfectly legal right of way, to welcome the governor and his entourage.
Unless he approaches the event via water, he will have to read your signs. All you have to do is plan to be there and hold them up.
Now how about it?
Monday, February 14, 2011
Scott to Tea Party Floridians 'We are going after education First. Yay!'
Only a heartless tea partier could like a system whose local tax breaks go after school foremost and right out of the gate.
Let's take another look at the Tea Party Governor as he wows his crowd.
Points:
1. "This is the budget you asked for" tea partiers.
2. "Reduce state spending by $5 billion." Ooops. $3.3 of that comes from education. More than half.
3. "It's a budget that doesn't dabble, it doesn't offer a little something for every special interest, nor sweeteners for very special people." This could only mean one thing: " special interests" are our children. "sweeteners" given the nature of the tax breaks, are research grants for our major universities, scholarships for outstanding students, programs for needy kids, programs for special education. In his twisted world view, these "sweeteners" are disgusting entitlement programs for undeserving freeloaders. And his crowd, freaking LOVES THIS STUFF.
And why not? Look at them.
4. "The government has got to get back to its core functions and only its core functions," such as giving massive tax breaks to corporations, and reducing "frivolous lawsuits" like the one Columbia Health Care endured, presumably.
5. "We can't spend more than we take in" but we are going to immediately begin to take in less.
6. "We will not increase taxes in Florida."Okay, and cops, prisons, roads, etc.?
7. He references the reduction in income in Florida. He doesn't mention that the economic crisis was perpetrated with intent, by the corporations he is helping to continue to beggar us.
8. Small business tax reduction is great. That's not what he cares about, and the reductions to regulations specifically helping small businesses will likely be nill. Whereas the doors of deregulation will be wide open for massive corporations.
9. $1.4 billion reduction in property taxes.
10. "Zero cuts out of state general revenue for eduction" now a complete lie. As stated a massive cut will come at the local levels through mandated reductions in the millage rate TO THE SCHOOLS.
11. "Great beaches, great weather" good service jobs for our children we suppose.
12. The "private sector" jobs, likely will come to weapons corporations who have but ONE customer: the U.S. Taxpayer, and you can bet your ass alternative energy corporations will not be made welcome.
13.. "Anything you need to know about my background, remember this:I know how to get a return" which in his case it came from running a company that infamously bilked Medicare which he left just before indictments could reach him.
14. "Private jets" is likely a Sunshine Law attempted workaround.
15. "These agencies are only there to serve the interest of the taxpayers" Some of these agencies, in fact, are there to protect the environment from the rapine of developers and large corporations so that taxpayers in the future can enjoy our state which is utterly unique on planet earth in its environmental bounty.
16. "There are significant opportunities for management of our state prison system" which means corporate privitisation." He specifically mentions the juvenile offender system.
17. Go on www.letsgettowork.net every line what's the purpose and what's the measure... It is clearly deliniated how every dollar is spent."
18. "There are many special interests who will complain about cuts to their special programs"
Let's admit this crowd thinks education is a "special interest" and that massive corporations deserve more of a hand out. Now let's look at who attended this event, and perhaps you'll get an idea why it was greeted with such a warm reception.
Click the link. Notice anything?http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2011/february/205115/Governor-Scott-outlines-new-Florida-budget-at-Tea-Party-event-in-Eustis
Let's take another look at the Tea Party Governor as he wows his crowd.
Points:
1. "This is the budget you asked for" tea partiers.
2. "Reduce state spending by $5 billion." Ooops. $3.3 of that comes from education. More than half.
3. "It's a budget that doesn't dabble, it doesn't offer a little something for every special interest, nor sweeteners for very special people." This could only mean one thing: " special interests" are our children. "sweeteners" given the nature of the tax breaks, are research grants for our major universities, scholarships for outstanding students, programs for needy kids, programs for special education. In his twisted world view, these "sweeteners" are disgusting entitlement programs for undeserving freeloaders. And his crowd, freaking LOVES THIS STUFF.
And why not? Look at them.
4. "The government has got to get back to its core functions and only its core functions," such as giving massive tax breaks to corporations, and reducing "frivolous lawsuits" like the one Columbia Health Care endured, presumably.
5. "We can't spend more than we take in" but we are going to immediately begin to take in less.
6. "We will not increase taxes in Florida."Okay, and cops, prisons, roads, etc.?
7. He references the reduction in income in Florida. He doesn't mention that the economic crisis was perpetrated with intent, by the corporations he is helping to continue to beggar us.
8. Small business tax reduction is great. That's not what he cares about, and the reductions to regulations specifically helping small businesses will likely be nill. Whereas the doors of deregulation will be wide open for massive corporations.
9. $1.4 billion reduction in property taxes.
10. "Zero cuts out of state general revenue for eduction" now a complete lie. As stated a massive cut will come at the local levels through mandated reductions in the millage rate TO THE SCHOOLS.
11. "Great beaches, great weather" good service jobs for our children we suppose.
12. The "private sector" jobs, likely will come to weapons corporations who have but ONE customer: the U.S. Taxpayer, and you can bet your ass alternative energy corporations will not be made welcome.
13.. "Anything you need to know about my background, remember this:I know how to get a return" which in his case it came from running a company that infamously bilked Medicare which he left just before indictments could reach him.
14. "Private jets" is likely a Sunshine Law attempted workaround.
15. "These agencies are only there to serve the interest of the taxpayers" Some of these agencies, in fact, are there to protect the environment from the rapine of developers and large corporations so that taxpayers in the future can enjoy our state which is utterly unique on planet earth in its environmental bounty.
16. "There are significant opportunities for management of our state prison system" which means corporate privitisation." He specifically mentions the juvenile offender system.
17. Go on www.letsgettowork.net every line what's the purpose and what's the measure... It is clearly deliniated how every dollar is spent."
18. "There are many special interests who will complain about cuts to their special programs"
Let's admit this crowd thinks education is a "special interest" and that massive corporations deserve more of a hand out. Now let's look at who attended this event, and perhaps you'll get an idea why it was greeted with such a warm reception.
Click the link. Notice anything?http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2011/february/205115/Governor-Scott-outlines-new-Florida-budget-at-Tea-Party-event-in-Eustis
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Marco Rubio's 'Freaky' Follows
I decided in fairness, and since it was fun, to look at some of the follows that at least one other Florida politician was enjoying on his Twitter site. At random I chose Marco Rubio (@marcorubio), republican senator from Miami.
From the sexy, to the downright strange and the comical, here are but a handful of Senator Marco Rubio's "freaky follows" These are people his account is following back, as of 6.00 p.m. EST, Feb 13.
1.@Gabriele Sannino
5.Hard Ten
6.Borat Obama
From the sexy, to the downright strange and the comical, here are but a handful of Senator Marco Rubio's "freaky follows" These are people his account is following back, as of 6.00 p.m. EST, Feb 13.
1.@Gabriele Sannino
2. Jamie McCarthy
@nraandivote
Single girl who loves guys who shoot!
3. Nobama Girl
@hotnobamagirl
Obama Girl Is Bubble Head Liberal
4. True Conservative
5.Hard Ten
@therealchaz
6.Borat Obama
Sexy-Times West Wing. Niiice!
I guess our public officials are following lots of folks from all walks of life on twitter, and there's no shame in that. Just entertainment.
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