You can't separate the racial overtones of blaming Obama for everything, for not having cleaned the mess of others up in under a few months and a few furious strokes of the mop. It's just appalling. It's like something out of Uncle Remus.
Thirty five months to clean up a ten year mess, and the boy just couldn't do it. Well? I told you they's all good fo' nothing! Out he goes! Time to put whitey back in the driver's seat! Gubn'a Mitt, he de one!
You can't separate the GOP blatant willful ignorance of Obama's accomplishments in bringing the economy back from the brink and neutralizing two terrorist threats that neither Bush nor Reagan could defeat, in Qaddafi's case.
"Took your sweet time though, didn't you, boy. Lawd you wouldn't ha' even done it if'n massa Bush hain't draw'd you a road map to staht wit!"
To not even mention the racial component at work here is intellectual dishonesty. The very definition of it, and our popular media - Hell even Rev. Al Sharpton failed to mention more of it in Mitt Romnewt's speech tonight - is quick to bury its head in a whole pile of it, tout sweet-like.
To not mention this: how this narrative leaves our current president holding the bag of crap ten years in the making, then blames him for holding it, is the height of hypocrisy. It is the oldest trick in the racist's playbook: Blame the black man.
Didn't you hear? Black man is always gimme gimmee gimmee. Black man always be's socialist. Sean Hannity actually said on his radio program that Obama only wants to stay in the nice big house a while longer. Swear to God he did. I nearly plowed into a tree driving. What year is this, again?
It is the GOP playbook in 2012. It is the politics of race that also enables republicans to fire back that if you mention this, you are playing the race card.
I mean, how dare you notice when we are playing into our own stereotype; when we play into a stereotype other racists have laid down for us across four hundred years? How unfair of you to notice our very racism! You, you! Reverse racist you!
It is the ugliest, most ornery, most stump-ignorant thing to do in this universe; to blame the black man for the mess others have made, grin knowingly to your friends who are ready to start clapping and laughing at the inside joke right along with you.
Anyone who grew up in the south knows this game. The mean spirited ole southern red neck knows damned well he's doing it. You have to ask, does Romney? Is he just that cynical he's trying to steal Newt's bass boat democgraphic, with the Florida primary not even cold yet? Is he just that much of a machine?
And it's just so damned shameless.
"Under this president more people have become unemployed foreclosed on than under any other president."
Romnewt why not just adopt a southern drawl and shout; "Black man did it! Black man!"
But "I met some hispanic entrepreneurs," Romnewt says all churchy-like.
Have you noticed that so often in today's GOP the word "Hispanic" is caboosed by the word "entrepreneurs" and the words "African American" are caboosed with the words "food stamp" and "role models" as in, the need for more of them or better ones? Hell! Tell Me! What year is this?
Let's admit, Romnewt's is a more subtle dog whistle of racial overtones. Thank the lawd he never mentioned food stamps. No. We can thank him for that.
He just blamed Obama for everything not nailed down; everything but the kitchen sink. Then in that sanctimonious tone, that scornful admonishing holier-than-thou tone that republicans have so long practiced they can do it in their sleep, he mentioned booting Obama out of the WHITE House; summarily without pomp and circumstance playing in the background. Perhaps they just imagine Granny and Jed Clampit running in with a shotgun filled with rock-salt.
"You were elected to lead (translation: "white man gave you a minute in the sun to do sumpn'") "you chose to follow" (translation: "cause you ain't nuthin but a boy") "and now it's time for you to get out of the way" (translation: "go one now, boy, an git off de porch!").
Hideous. Here I am faced with a version of Mitt Romney I never expected, a knee jerk racist who had about as much interest in courting the African American vote as he sauntered through Florida as he did wiping something awful off of his shoe with his fingers.
Did the GOP even stop in the African American community anywhere? They are so damned all-inclusive? The new GOP, right? After Cain left the race they don't give a damn. Did you see them in Overtown? Did you see them in Temple Terrace? Did you see them over off University and Lipscomb in Melbourne? No. You know where they spoke to the black community from? From inside the VFW post in Cocoa, talking about "responsibility" and so on, in that sickening tone.
Do they know this state is chock full of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who are black? Do they know that the lieutenant governor, albeit religiously blinded is a black woman? Did they ever care to find out? Did they even mention Jennifer Carroll? Did they shake hands with one black state rep?
No in his speech Romnewt leans back, with his mint julip in one hand, whipes the sweat off his brow, and says, "don't worry Mr. President, we remember exactly how we got here, you won the election!"
Your fault for winning that election, boy! Your fault and now you gonna pay!
The one modicum of respect Romnewt has paid the president which escapes Newt at least is, Romnewt deigns to mention that Obama IS the president. Not Newt.
Listen to Mitt's entire hideous speech here. Pause and rewind after these snippets where he goes after Obama with total intellectual dishonesty and look at the white guilt written all over Romney's mug. He knows better than this. He was raised better than this. He is mouthing words crafted for him from the bowels of racist, fascist GOP-land.
It's appalling. It's sad. It's retrograde renegade racism, and the media should be ashamed for not calling Romnewt to the mat for this display.
If this man is to be the republican nominee, and apparently he is, the hope I had that at the very least two sane people could argue over actual points of fact, have just sailed out the window.
Rick Scott Watch
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
I DON'T HATE RICK SCOTT...
Someone asked me why I "hate the governor so much?" It was in one of these online blogs in the comments' section. This person was aware of my book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State.
He had read the first few pages on kindle amazon and thought that qualified him to make such a sweeping determination. Like many folks who peruse Kindle, or any book store, the first few pages is good enough for them. "Sure, I read that book," they say at parties, or on blog sites.
Let's get this straight: I don't personally "hate" Rick Scott. I don't even know the guy. Never met him. Tried to, but his security people wouldn't let him come out into daylight while I was in the room. Not that I was dangerous. I was a big man not going anywhere. I was going to make a stink and a scene and it would be filmed and he didn't want that. I never said he was hopelessly stupid.
So I don't hate Rick Scott.
I do however, vehemently oppose what he stands for and the fact he was installed as our governor by a corporate cabal. That part I do despise. I do despise what this cabal is attempting to do to Florida and democracy.
Hate not the sinner. In hating the sin, however, I do reserve the right to parody and lambaste the sinner every chance I get since he seems determined to carry out his mission of a coordinated attack on my state.
1. Installed per bogus, hacked, corrupted vote. Consult the videos ( ..Part 2.....Part 3)
2. Cuts money to the disabled; returns some of that money, cuts funding to education, returns some of that, guts health care services to do that...on and on and on in downward spiral toward NO services.
3.Attacks teachers and public education. This with an eye toward charterizing all schools K-12 entirely. In doing this we bring back segregation through top-down class warfare. Rich white Christians go to school only with other rich white Christians; Rich white Jews go to school with other Rich white Jews; middle class bla bla blas goes to school with other middle class blas blas blas, break all those groups into their little pigeon holes and the poor get dumped in underfunded falling-apart public school.
Incidentally this is classic divide and conquer. Hope you caught that. By doing this, we are discouraged from seeing the 99 percent/1 percent truth. And our kids are preconditioned never to even think about it.
4. He/they want everyone but the economically elite drug tested; with all of us to paying for that out of our pockets funneling the money to a company Rick Scott recently owned or one just like it. More top-down class bullying with benefits.
5. Speaking of friends with benefits. They/He want to set up a system of corporate prisons in the state. By the way, these prisons then become category killers wiping out small businesses; lawn services, landscaping services, fish farms, small farms, other cottage industries. Prisoners are "trained" to re-enter society and earn pennies per hour learning these trades (good). The corporations reap the benefits in big fat margins while undercutting real businesses (bad) and when the prisoner leaves prison the only place he can hope to find a job applying his new trade, is by going back to prison (really bad). They never get around to mentioning this.
6. Wants to turn college grads into widgets per hour technical school grads. Anyone else who wants to earn a higher degree, in medicine, engineering and so on, you're going to be asked to pony up more money. They also want to kill, kill, kill all liberal arts. More top-down class bullying. These attacks are called exploiting "leveraged opportunities in higher education" in the Koch Brothers seminars. (I love the pithy humor in that phrase). Seminars that Rick Scott attends, or has at least on one occasion attended as our governor after eluding the media.
7. They want to have a mechanism to eliminate local government and taking it over by pointing a stick at it and saying "financial emergency." See the related post Rick Scott's Nuclear Option.
8. He has no regard for the transparency that is government; he defies and spits on our public records laws. (And our media have stopped caring).
This list continues but this is enough for now.
These things are detestable. They are hateful attacks on us.
I get to hate these attacks back. I am sure inside his own twisted mind, and inside his circle of fascists, Rick Scott feels he is "doing what is right". I am sure those around him have concocted some little theatrical movie script in their minds for all this. They have group-thinked an "in it for Jesus" or "us versus them" docudrama whereby trashing the state and the federal constitution is all for the best; so that "those evil ones" stop doing whatever it is we are doing, like hanging on by our damn fingernails.
One thing is for certain: anyone who isn't a community activist at this time, just isn't thinking.
I do all this compelled to do this by the sure knowledge "we are changing this country" means the right thing when it comes out of Obama's mouth, and something insidious, murderous and evil when it comes out of Rick Scott's mouth.
Not that Obama walks on water and can heal the sick by a touch of his robe. No. But that Obama's version of it - alternative energy, health care for the citizens, stopping the attacks on the poor and the middle class - is going in the right direction, and everything Rick Scott is proposing takes us down a path to corporate slavery and a perpetual state of war with the rest of the planet.
One path leads up, and the other leads down to the destruction of our country.
He had read the first few pages on kindle amazon and thought that qualified him to make such a sweeping determination. Like many folks who peruse Kindle, or any book store, the first few pages is good enough for them. "Sure, I read that book," they say at parties, or on blog sites.Let's get this straight: I don't personally "hate" Rick Scott. I don't even know the guy. Never met him. Tried to, but his security people wouldn't let him come out into daylight while I was in the room. Not that I was dangerous. I was a big man not going anywhere. I was going to make a stink and a scene and it would be filmed and he didn't want that. I never said he was hopelessly stupid.
So I don't hate Rick Scott.
I do however, vehemently oppose what he stands for and the fact he was installed as our governor by a corporate cabal. That part I do despise. I do despise what this cabal is attempting to do to Florida and democracy.
Hate not the sinner. In hating the sin, however, I do reserve the right to parody and lambaste the sinner every chance I get since he seems determined to carry out his mission of a coordinated attack on my state.
1. Installed per bogus, hacked, corrupted vote. Consult the videos ( ..Part 2.....Part 3)
2. Cuts money to the disabled; returns some of that money, cuts funding to education, returns some of that, guts health care services to do that...on and on and on in downward spiral toward NO services.
3.Attacks teachers and public education. This with an eye toward charterizing all schools K-12 entirely. In doing this we bring back segregation through top-down class warfare. Rich white Christians go to school only with other rich white Christians; Rich white Jews go to school with other Rich white Jews; middle class bla bla blas goes to school with other middle class blas blas blas, break all those groups into their little pigeon holes and the poor get dumped in underfunded falling-apart public school.
Incidentally this is classic divide and conquer. Hope you caught that. By doing this, we are discouraged from seeing the 99 percent/1 percent truth. And our kids are preconditioned never to even think about it.
4. He/they want everyone but the economically elite drug tested; with all of us to paying for that out of our pockets funneling the money to a company Rick Scott recently owned or one just like it. More top-down class bullying with benefits.
5. Speaking of friends with benefits. They/He want to set up a system of corporate prisons in the state. By the way, these prisons then become category killers wiping out small businesses; lawn services, landscaping services, fish farms, small farms, other cottage industries. Prisoners are "trained" to re-enter society and earn pennies per hour learning these trades (good). The corporations reap the benefits in big fat margins while undercutting real businesses (bad) and when the prisoner leaves prison the only place he can hope to find a job applying his new trade, is by going back to prison (really bad). They never get around to mentioning this.
6. Wants to turn college grads into widgets per hour technical school grads. Anyone else who wants to earn a higher degree, in medicine, engineering and so on, you're going to be asked to pony up more money. They also want to kill, kill, kill all liberal arts. More top-down class bullying. These attacks are called exploiting "leveraged opportunities in higher education" in the Koch Brothers seminars. (I love the pithy humor in that phrase). Seminars that Rick Scott attends, or has at least on one occasion attended as our governor after eluding the media.
7. They want to have a mechanism to eliminate local government and taking it over by pointing a stick at it and saying "financial emergency." See the related post Rick Scott's Nuclear Option.
8. He has no regard for the transparency that is government; he defies and spits on our public records laws. (And our media have stopped caring).
This list continues but this is enough for now.
These things are detestable. They are hateful attacks on us.
I get to hate these attacks back. I am sure inside his own twisted mind, and inside his circle of fascists, Rick Scott feels he is "doing what is right". I am sure those around him have concocted some little theatrical movie script in their minds for all this. They have group-thinked an "in it for Jesus" or "us versus them" docudrama whereby trashing the state and the federal constitution is all for the best; so that "those evil ones" stop doing whatever it is we are doing, like hanging on by our damn fingernails.
One thing is for certain: anyone who isn't a community activist at this time, just isn't thinking.
I do all this compelled to do this by the sure knowledge "we are changing this country" means the right thing when it comes out of Obama's mouth, and something insidious, murderous and evil when it comes out of Rick Scott's mouth.
Not that Obama walks on water and can heal the sick by a touch of his robe. No. But that Obama's version of it - alternative energy, health care for the citizens, stopping the attacks on the poor and the middle class - is going in the right direction, and everything Rick Scott is proposing takes us down a path to corporate slavery and a perpetual state of war with the rest of the planet.
One path leads up, and the other leads down to the destruction of our country.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
GOP Entrance Exam Answer Key
This is the answer Key for the GOP Entrance Exam; a 20 question quiz designed to see if you're worthy to call yourself a "patriotic American" and a "member" of the GOP.
Each question is worth 5 pts.
The bad news is, a "true patriot republican" already knows all these, or any answers, without being told. Deduct 10 pts. for even consulting an answer key. If you were forced to use the bonus question, also deduct another 5 pts. If you just said/lied to yourself "well, I really didn't need to consult this answer key, I was only checking out of curiosity," congratulations give yourself back your lost 15 pts. and continue grading yourself.
Answers.
1. c.
2.d
3.d
4.d
5.d
6.c. He would never bomb his own bowels. Don't be silly.
7.d
8. c
9.d
10.d
11.d
12.d
13.d When in doubt you MUST blame Obama first, then do c.
14.c
15.d
16.c
17.a
18.b
19.d
20.d
Bonus Question: d.
Grade 100 to 125 pts. Congratulations! You've got what it takes! You're in the club!
90-100 pts. Technically you've failed this examination. Know that the GOP prides itself on a nearly impossible litmus test of ever changing, ever just out of reach "patriotic" purity. That you'd even grade yourself fairly and honestly bespeaks an amount of introspection and intellectual honesty the GOP tends to shun.
80-90 pts. Let's face it, the fact you didn't cheat, even the slightest bit says that you're not for us. You basically know the material but, you've displayed a disgusting amount of intellectual honesty here.
70-80 pts. You're pathetic. Not only are you honest, you didn't get the point. Obviously you're one of the many poor useful idiots we count on. You're not quite a republican at all, are you. No. You're a reactionary, poor member of the Tea Party.
70-0 pts. Seek ye the democratic party. LOSER! In fact you are SUCH loser we suggest you click this link immediately for further assistance.
Each question is worth 5 pts.
The bad news is, a "true patriot republican" already knows all these, or any answers, without being told. Deduct 10 pts. for even consulting an answer key. If you were forced to use the bonus question, also deduct another 5 pts. If you just said/lied to yourself "well, I really didn't need to consult this answer key, I was only checking out of curiosity," congratulations give yourself back your lost 15 pts. and continue grading yourself.
Answers.
1. c.
2.d
3.d
4.d
5.d
6.c. He would never bomb his own bowels. Don't be silly.
7.d
8. c
9.d
10.d
11.d
12.d
13.d When in doubt you MUST blame Obama first, then do c.
14.c
15.d
16.c
17.a
18.b
19.d
20.d
Bonus Question: d.
Grade 100 to 125 pts. Congratulations! You've got what it takes! You're in the club!
90-100 pts. Technically you've failed this examination. Know that the GOP prides itself on a nearly impossible litmus test of ever changing, ever just out of reach "patriotic" purity. That you'd even grade yourself fairly and honestly bespeaks an amount of introspection and intellectual honesty the GOP tends to shun.
80-90 pts. Let's face it, the fact you didn't cheat, even the slightest bit says that you're not for us. You basically know the material but, you've displayed a disgusting amount of intellectual honesty here.
70-80 pts. You're pathetic. Not only are you honest, you didn't get the point. Obviously you're one of the many poor useful idiots we count on. You're not quite a republican at all, are you. No. You're a reactionary, poor member of the Tea Party.
70-0 pts. Seek ye the democratic party. LOSER! In fact you are SUCH loser we suggest you click this link immediately for further assistance.
Take the GOP Entrance Exam
Test Your GOP Quotient. Are you fit to call yourself a republican? Should you have your citizenship revoked for lack of "true patriotism"? Take the test.
1. Name the most evil thing in this group.
a. Genocide
b. Disease
c. Obama
d. Famine
2. Last year's earthquake and tsunami were the result of which? (one answer is MOST correct)
a. Shifting crustal plates causing a massive slumping a few miles off shore from Japan, and an associated tidal wave.
b. God's wrath
c. A failure in Obama's economic policies
d. Obama's failure to address tectonic forces.
3. As a candidate for president you are asked about $1 million in fees paid to you while working as a "historian" for Freddie Mack during the worst economic crisis we have seen in modern times. Your BEST move to say which of these?
a. You are in a secure heterosexual relationship with only one woman.
b. The policies of this president are killing this country
c. Many common folk work as historians for Freddie and just because your office was on K Street and you introduced senators and congressmen to officers for Freddie while receiving your fees, doesn't mean anything, especially. Certainly not that you were actually functioning as a "lobbyist."
d. all of the above
4. President Rick Santorum is faced with a threat to "our way of life". His BEST response would be to...
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb Hollywood.
5. President Rick Santorum is posed a tough question on quantum mechanics. His BEST response would be to...
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva.
6. President Rick Santorum is faced with irritable bowel syndrome. His BEST response would be to.
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva, bomb Hollywood, bomb his own bowels.
7. President Rick Santorum is faced with a difficult economic crisis. His BEST response would be to.
a. Point out that his grandparents came from Italy.
b. Bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva, bomb Hollywood
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
d. all of the above
8. Which response BEST describes the party's feelings towards Ron Paul?
a. The X Factor candidate
b. Two Ron Pauls don't make a right.
c. Peace is not an option, Ron.
d. Why does he keep saying "end the fed"? What does that even mean?
9. Rank the evil in ascending order.
a. Hitler, David Duke, Easter Bunny, Obama, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro.
b. Easter Bunny, Obama, David Duke, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Hitler
c. David Duke, Hitler, Easter Bunny, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Obama
d. Hitler, Easter Bunny, David Duke, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Obama, Obama!
10. The accepted GOP plan for creating jobs is to...
a. Blame teachers, blame the gay community, end abortion, cut taxes on the rich
b. Take over government, make it meaner, hurt people, kill the middle class, screw the environment have a party.
c. Kill Bambi, club a harp seal to death, run over some nuns with a truck, shoot a bum out of the window of a speeding limo, go to church.
d. all of these
11. Being a job creator is which?
a. A rising entrepreneur who cares about the company he takes over.
b. Someone who gets tax cuts for creating jobs.
c. Someone who gets an erection by firing people.
d. A person who has no idea what he is doing with a super-massive company he is at the controls of, fires people on a whim, and uses tax breaks to fund swank vacations and lobbying junkets in the Cayman Islands where he hides his money.
12. The GOP's accepted line on NASA is...
a. Obama destroyed it. There's nothing there now. Nothing. It's like a ghost town. Dead things everywhere.
b. Obama physically came down to the Space Coast and dismantled it with a wrench and a bunch of goons related to Fidel Castro.
c. Obama came down to the Space Coast put up a chain link fence around NASA and started shooting at workers trying to get to work there.
D. ALL OF THE ABOVE
13. As a presidential candidate, someone calls you a corporate raider who has made billions by taking over companies and firing people. You also fill your days by moving money around. Your BEST response is to what?
a. Crawl off into a dark room and cower in fear.
b. Try to pretend you're the common man.
c. Say "I make NO apologies for being successful. It's the American way and I can't believe my fellow republicans are taking up the weapons of the left to hurt me."
d. Blame Obama before doing or saying anything else.
14. Which statement is MOST true.
a. Because Obama is black he is foreign, therefor doesn't share "our values."
b. Because Obama is black, Hugo Chavez is his friend.
c. Because Obama is black and he is president, we are now living under a system of socialism.
d. Obama is the "foodstamp president" because he is black.
15. When we say "he doesn't share our values" what we are really saying is what?
a. Obama is black
b. Obama is foreign AND socialist.
c. Obama is a Muslim
d. All of the above.
16. "Foodstamp president" means what?
a. Obama is black
b. Covert racism is an acceptable tool.
c. Overt racism works in South Carolina, and we're okay with that.
d. None of these
17. When we say "our values" what do we really mean?
a. Whatever we want it to mean at that particular instant.
b. Nothing.
c. Conservative Christian values.
d. none of these
18. Who was Jesus Christ? (One response is MOST true.)
a. A man who walked around with twelve other dudes, who hated homosexuals and people who didn't follow him.
b. The Son of a Merciful God, who hated everyone who didn't believe as he did and would agree with Rick Santorum on the need for a preemptive strike against Iran.
c. A man who didn't believe in Darwin.
d. Wasn't a democrat.
19. God hates who? (Best answer)
a. Gays
b. Non believers
c. Muslims
d. All non-white, non-Christian, non-republicans.
20. Your views on abortion are best described as...
a. Life begins at the end of my penis
b. Your uterus is mine to impregnate even by force if necessary, cousin.
c. Rape incest, okay by me, why not.
d. All of the above.
Bonus question for 5 extra points.
A real "family values" marriage is between whom?
a. A boy and his dog.
b. A man and a woman
c. Two loving partners
d. A man, a woman, and the man's concubine when necessary.
Click here for the answer key, grade and where you stand on the scale of "true patriotism".
1. Name the most evil thing in this group.
a. Genocide
b. Disease
c. Obama
d. Famine
2. Last year's earthquake and tsunami were the result of which? (one answer is MOST correct)
a. Shifting crustal plates causing a massive slumping a few miles off shore from Japan, and an associated tidal wave.
b. God's wrath
c. A failure in Obama's economic policies
d. Obama's failure to address tectonic forces.
3. As a candidate for president you are asked about $1 million in fees paid to you while working as a "historian" for Freddie Mack during the worst economic crisis we have seen in modern times. Your BEST move to say which of these?
a. You are in a secure heterosexual relationship with only one woman.
b. The policies of this president are killing this country
c. Many common folk work as historians for Freddie and just because your office was on K Street and you introduced senators and congressmen to officers for Freddie while receiving your fees, doesn't mean anything, especially. Certainly not that you were actually functioning as a "lobbyist."
d. all of the above
4. President Rick Santorum is faced with a threat to "our way of life". His BEST response would be to...
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb Hollywood.
5. President Rick Santorum is posed a tough question on quantum mechanics. His BEST response would be to...
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva.
6. President Rick Santorum is faced with irritable bowel syndrome. His BEST response would be to.
a. Blame Obama
b. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris
d. Blame Obama, bomb Iran, bomb Paris, bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva, bomb Hollywood, bomb his own bowels.
7. President Rick Santorum is faced with a difficult economic crisis. His BEST response would be to.
a. Point out that his grandparents came from Italy.
b. Bomb the Hadron collider near Geneva, bomb Hollywood
c. Blame Obama, bomb Iran
d. all of the above
8. Which response BEST describes the party's feelings towards Ron Paul?
a. The X Factor candidate
b. Two Ron Pauls don't make a right.
c. Peace is not an option, Ron.
d. Why does he keep saying "end the fed"? What does that even mean?
9. Rank the evil in ascending order.
a. Hitler, David Duke, Easter Bunny, Obama, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro.
b. Easter Bunny, Obama, David Duke, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Hitler
c. David Duke, Hitler, Easter Bunny, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Obama
d. Hitler, Easter Bunny, David Duke, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Obama, Obama!
10. The accepted GOP plan for creating jobs is to...
a. Blame teachers, blame the gay community, end abortion, cut taxes on the rich
b. Take over government, make it meaner, hurt people, kill the middle class, screw the environment have a party.
c. Kill Bambi, club a harp seal to death, run over some nuns with a truck, shoot a bum out of the window of a speeding limo, go to church.
d. all of these
11. Being a job creator is which?
a. A rising entrepreneur who cares about the company he takes over.
b. Someone who gets tax cuts for creating jobs.
c. Someone who gets an erection by firing people.
d. A person who has no idea what he is doing with a super-massive company he is at the controls of, fires people on a whim, and uses tax breaks to fund swank vacations and lobbying junkets in the Cayman Islands where he hides his money.
12. The GOP's accepted line on NASA is...
a. Obama destroyed it. There's nothing there now. Nothing. It's like a ghost town. Dead things everywhere.
b. Obama physically came down to the Space Coast and dismantled it with a wrench and a bunch of goons related to Fidel Castro.
c. Obama came down to the Space Coast put up a chain link fence around NASA and started shooting at workers trying to get to work there.
D. ALL OF THE ABOVE
13. As a presidential candidate, someone calls you a corporate raider who has made billions by taking over companies and firing people. You also fill your days by moving money around. Your BEST response is to what?
a. Crawl off into a dark room and cower in fear.
b. Try to pretend you're the common man.
c. Say "I make NO apologies for being successful. It's the American way and I can't believe my fellow republicans are taking up the weapons of the left to hurt me."
d. Blame Obama before doing or saying anything else.
14. Which statement is MOST true.
a. Because Obama is black he is foreign, therefor doesn't share "our values."
b. Because Obama is black, Hugo Chavez is his friend.
c. Because Obama is black and he is president, we are now living under a system of socialism.
d. Obama is the "foodstamp president" because he is black.
15. When we say "he doesn't share our values" what we are really saying is what?
a. Obama is black
b. Obama is foreign AND socialist.
c. Obama is a Muslim
d. All of the above.
16. "Foodstamp president" means what?
a. Obama is black
b. Covert racism is an acceptable tool.
c. Overt racism works in South Carolina, and we're okay with that.
d. None of these
17. When we say "our values" what do we really mean?
a. Whatever we want it to mean at that particular instant.
b. Nothing.
c. Conservative Christian values.
d. none of these
18. Who was Jesus Christ? (One response is MOST true.)
a. A man who walked around with twelve other dudes, who hated homosexuals and people who didn't follow him.
b. The Son of a Merciful God, who hated everyone who didn't believe as he did and would agree with Rick Santorum on the need for a preemptive strike against Iran.
c. A man who didn't believe in Darwin.
d. Wasn't a democrat.
19. God hates who? (Best answer)
a. Gays
b. Non believers
c. Muslims
d. All non-white, non-Christian, non-republicans.
20. Your views on abortion are best described as...
a. Life begins at the end of my penis
b. Your uterus is mine to impregnate even by force if necessary, cousin.
c. Rape incest, okay by me, why not.
d. All of the above.
Bonus question for 5 extra points.
A real "family values" marriage is between whom?
a. A boy and his dog.
b. A man and a woman
c. Two loving partners
d. A man, a woman, and the man's concubine when necessary.
Click here for the answer key, grade and where you stand on the scale of "true patriotism".
Friday, January 20, 2012
Letter to Hillsborough Officials Today
Once again I thank you for allowing me to speak yesterday.
As I said at the meeting. I am approaching county commissions to remove Dominion voting systems from all 32 of 67 counties that rely on them.
The events of Nov. 2, 2010 no matter whether one views them as the result of theft of election, as I do, or random glitch, if as county officials say verbally one machine “malfunctioned” this represents a serious problem for voting in Florida.
As I was getting to yesterday and didn’t have time to finish, the random “glitch” in Hillsborough County seems to have a political agenda. This “glitch” seems to have taken a dislike to an area of you county filled with students and minority voters.
Your “glitch” in Hillsborough has shown it has the potential to affect a general election, a gubernatorial one at that.
Given that the I-4 corridor has been shown to be the tipping power in more than one presidential race and that Hillsborough, Orange and Volusia rely on these unreliable machines it is important to remove them if, as I have been assured, a “malfunction” is what first erased 38,000 votes.
Yes, these votes were “rescanned” but the reason the entire state changed back to ballots with a paper trail was not so they could be “rescanned”. The reason we have a paper trail is so votes can be “recounted” if necessary; in the event of a close race.
Too many supervisors of election are being dragged into a situation, in my opinion, where a “rescanning” is the end run around a recount. The proper handling of a rescanning isn’t even codified in Florida law. I have been told by Mr. Lennard himself that each SOE can handle a “rescanning” however he or she sees fit.
Please send me something in writing concerning what happened in Hillsborough on election night that resulted in this “rescanning.”
This affects all of us.
Thank you
David Kearns
Hillsborough County Commission Yesterday
My comments below. Here's the video link. We come in at 31:00.
MY NAME IS DAVID KEARNS.
I'M AN AuThOR.
I WROTE, "RICK SCOTT, ENEMY OFTHE STATE."
I WAS ASSURED LAST TIME I CAME
HERE I'D HAVE SOMETHING IN
WRITING REGARDING THE GLITCHED
ELECTION HERE IN HILLSBOROUGH
COUNTY THAT GAVE US RICK
SCOTT.
WE ARE A YEAR AND THREE MONTHS
SINCE THE EVENTS WHICH
RESULTED IN THE ERASURE OF
38,000 VOTES ALL FROM EARLY
VOTING, MANY FROM MINORITY
COMMUNITIES OR LOCATIONS WHERE
STUDENTS VOTE, EVENTS I FEEL
ARE EVIDENCE OF BAD FAITH, A
STOLEN ELECTION.
REVIEWING NOW, I'VE ASKED FOR
AN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION FROM
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
HE RESIGNED PERHAPS RATHER
THAN ISSUE A STATEMENT OR EVEN
FAIN AN INVESTIGATION.
I ASKED EARL LENNARD AT THE
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS OFFICE
IN FRONT OF JIM BOBANIC.
I WAS TOLD A BALLOT SCREW-UP
HAPPENED DURING THE PRIMARY,
NOT THE GENERAL ELECTION.
MR. LENNARD -- BY MR. LENNARD.
NEITHER MR. BOWBANIC OR MR.
LATIMER CORRECTED HIM.
HE ALSO TOLD ME THE EVENTS
WERE DONE BY 10:30 IN THE
EVENING, WHICH WERE ABSOLUTELY
CONTRARY TO THE HISTORIC
RECORD.
YOU TAKE A DELIBERATE
STATEMENT LIKE THIS, THE WORD
"GLITCH," AND YOU ADD SOME OF
THESE CIRCUMSTANCES ABOUT THE
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS OFFICE
HERE -- I HATE THIS.
I'M A WRITER.
I WAS GOING TO WRITE A BOOK
THAT WAS KIND OF JUST SNIPE
THAT WAS KIND OF JUST SNIPING
AT TEA PARTY RICK, AND THEN I
-- I ASKED THE SIMPLE QUESTION
-- I ASKED THE SIMPLE
QUESTION, HOW DID HE GET
ELECTED, AND THIS IS WHAT
HAPPENED.
I UNCOVERED -- NOT UNCOVERED.
I MEAN, THIS IS GOOGLE.
WE HAD BUDDY JOHNSON'S TENURE,
YOU HAD MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
APPARENTLY MOVED AROUND, YOU
HAD A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION,
YOU HAD AN ARSONIST WORKING
FOR THE HILLSBOROUGH
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS
OFFICE, YOU HAD $336,000 IN
TRANSITION COSTS WERE GIVEN TO
MS. BUSANSKY IN ORDER FOR HER
TO CLEAN UP SOME OF THE MESS,
AND I DON'T THINK THAT'S ALL
THAT YOU GUYS VOTED ON FOR
THAT.
S IN BUSANSKY DIED WHILE
UNDERGOING HER INVESTIGATIONS.
I HATE TO BRING THAT UP.
I KNOW A LOT OF YOU GUYS
REALLY ADORED HER.
YOU HAD EARL LENNARD, WHO WAS
GIVEN THE POSITION BY CHARLIE
CRIST, AND THIS IS A
REPUBLICAN TAKING OVER FOR A
DEMOCRAT, AND HE PROMISED
THESE THINGS NEVER WOULD
HAPPEN AGAIN, AND THEN YOU HAD
THE WORST GLITCH IN THE
HISTORY OF VOTING PERHAPS IN
THE STATE, 38,000 VOTES.
OKAY.
THERE'S BEEN NO WRITTEN REPORT
FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE'S
OFFICE OR ANYONE.
I BELIEVE THESE MACHINES BY
DOMINION VOTING ARE USED TO
STEAL ELECTIONS OVER AND OVER
AGAIN.
I THINK THEY STOLE THIS ONE.
SINCE THERE'S NO REPORT, I
CAN'T GO TO COUNTY COMMISSIONS
AND SAY THIS HAPPENED, THIS IS
WHAT HAPPENED AND HERE ARE THE
NEWSPAPER REPORTS.
COUNTY COMMISSIONS IN IT OTHER
PARTS OF THE STATE DON'T
BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED.
MY OWN COUNTY COMMISSION WAS
MYSTIFIED THAT 38,000 BALLOTS
WERE TAINTED IN THIS WAY.
I JUST WANT TO SAY ONE MORE
THING AND I'LL FINISH. We need to get rid of dominion voting in Florida
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Rick Scott's "Nuclear Option"
They are busy as beavers building it. When it's complete, at the stroke of a pen it can obliterate a governing body of your elected officials, anywhere in the state.Comes the resurgence of a bill we saw die during the last session under the guise of Senate Bill 90; now resurrected from the dead as SB 368; what can only be described as “the governor’s nuclear option” bill.
SB 368 was introduced straight out of the gate , Jan 11, 2012 by Senator Don Gaetz of Niceville. When you read the thing, you can hardly believe your eyes and ears.
What it essentially says is, the governor can come along and look at the balance sheet for any governmental agency in the state of Florida from your city council to your school board, and begin dismantling it with managerial brutality and red tape thuggery, under the guise of a declared “financial emergency”.
What constitutes a "financial emergency"? 'Meh,' says officialdom 'let's keep that sort of loosy goosey for now. We want the governor to feel comfortable in setting those parameters after he sends the state auditor to your town for a look see.'
The bill was reworded slightly from last year, in that in place of naming “county commission” or “city council” it used the term “governing body”. Hopefully you won't be able to connect the dots that "governing body" covers all of the above. Not just a special taxing district but, say, the entirety of your county government if the governor so decides.
It is here we noticed that the concept of charter schools is enjoying more visible use within the language of this and other bills.
“District School Board, charter school, or charter technical career center” etc.
Question: is “charter technical career center” the new model for “college” or “university”? Or, is this the modern day equivalent of the Dickensian “workhouse?” Or is it perhaps a little of both?
We’ll have to come back to this later as this develops.
Everyone in the media ignored this bill during the last go round in 2011 when it was removed from discussion as SB 90. Likely because a team of hardworking bloggers (me, myself and I) was the first to notice the power this thing had. And well Big Media doesn’t like to follow bloggers down any path. They have to consider what this does to their cache of course, so best to ignore dangerous power grabs using chunks of nearly inscrutable legalese; particularly if someone as lowly as a “blogger” can at least partially untangle them.
Harrumpf…
Yes, well, that bitterness out of the way let us further dissect the madness in this thing.
It gives the governor the power to swoop in and begin demanding things from a local government entity owing to a financial emergency following a report of fiscal distress from the auditor general’s office.
The governor, his appointee or the commissioner of education working on his behalf can stipulate a poison pill timeline for “complying” and should they fail to do so, they can strip any and all administrative powers from that governing body, fire one or the lot of the elected officials, set up a separate entity to handle that body’s affairs.
In sum, an end run around your vote installing these people in the first place all at the touch of a buttom.
Truly, His Lordship, seeks control of all. And he does so very quietly through his solicitor, Senator Gaetz, the heir apparent to replace former fair haired child, Senator Mike Haridopolos.
The papers however did mention the power grab by the governor. The Miami Herald touched on it in their article of Jan. 15, 2012. [i]
And while they noticed Scott was going after the power held by judges, and pushing for his top finance man’s increased power to review state contracts, they barely hinted to the powers this bill would afford the governor's office.
In essence, it is a nuclear option. As we said before, it’s all well and good to have the right to collectively bargain in the state of Florida.
But when the governor can come in under the flimsiest of circumstances, issue a poison pill directive or two, then dismantle your school board or your city commission, who you gonna bargain with? Empty chairs?
Nice.
[i] “Florida Legislature Could Give Scott more powers” Miami Herald Jan. 15, 2012 http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/15/2590801/fla-legislature-could-give-scott.html
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Billboards on School Buses
I think we should have the kids all wear logos. Let's put logos on their backs, on the shirts on their hats.
Let's really go for it. Let's have it all splashed with corporate sponsorship. I want them seeing corporations, breathing corporations, feeling corporations as they walk into the classroom every morning.
I want our children surrounded by a corporate cocoon; a whitenoise of nullifiying advertising and product placement from the moment they wake up until the moment they lay their heads down, on a corporate pillow with a Nike logo on it.
In the morning, they should watch a video by a corporation. A new one every morning. touting the products, or maybe even introducing them to the personnel policies of that corporation.
I want to see how many times our little slaves and consumption units, our little debt buds, can say the word "corporation" in a ten second time limit. I want the watch to be super accurate that times this of course. I want it to be something Swiss. Something heavy and shiny and official looking, with a name you have to repeat because it sounds nothing like it looks written out.
Then I want them to feel bad about not knowing how to say it, before they walk into the room. Get one bright bulb and tell him ahead of time how you say it. And when some kid makes the mistake of trying to say the name of the watch maker, I want this kid to blurt out the right way to say it, like "everyone knows that....LOSER!"
I want our kids to all be ostricized if they don't wear the proper products to school. Air Jordans for instance. I want that to be school uniform standardized. I want the charter schools - because we're doing away with the traditional model - to change the dress code, every other week to keep up with the new designs.
Kids who can't keep up, have to go back to "traditional school."
Yeah, I like that. Losers walk, and so on. That's great.
And of course, all of this can start with logos all over the school buses, as is being debated right now in the Florida legislature with a new bill in the Senate, Senate Bill 344, by Sen. Bill Montford of North Florida.
We need corporations now more than ever, to make up for the budget deficits other more successful corporations have created for us by artificially deflating the economy like a soggy bicycle tire.
Wasn't it cool how they did that then managed to hold the rest of us up for emergency cash like highway bandits? You gotta hand it to them, man. Success in the good ole US of A.
Indoctrinating our young into how the world really works means getting the names of the various corporations right in their innocent, lazy little faces, bright and early in the morning, baby.
Hey parents don't like it they can suck on it.
Corporations then, corporations now, corporations fo-evuh!
Let's really go for it. Let's have it all splashed with corporate sponsorship. I want them seeing corporations, breathing corporations, feeling corporations as they walk into the classroom every morning.
I want our children surrounded by a corporate cocoon; a whitenoise of nullifiying advertising and product placement from the moment they wake up until the moment they lay their heads down, on a corporate pillow with a Nike logo on it.
In the morning, they should watch a video by a corporation. A new one every morning. touting the products, or maybe even introducing them to the personnel policies of that corporation.
I want to see how many times our little slaves and consumption units, our little debt buds, can say the word "corporation" in a ten second time limit. I want the watch to be super accurate that times this of course. I want it to be something Swiss. Something heavy and shiny and official looking, with a name you have to repeat because it sounds nothing like it looks written out.
Then I want them to feel bad about not knowing how to say it, before they walk into the room. Get one bright bulb and tell him ahead of time how you say it. And when some kid makes the mistake of trying to say the name of the watch maker, I want this kid to blurt out the right way to say it, like "everyone knows that....LOSER!"
I want our kids to all be ostricized if they don't wear the proper products to school. Air Jordans for instance. I want that to be school uniform standardized. I want the charter schools - because we're doing away with the traditional model - to change the dress code, every other week to keep up with the new designs.
Kids who can't keep up, have to go back to "traditional school."
Yeah, I like that. Losers walk, and so on. That's great.
And of course, all of this can start with logos all over the school buses, as is being debated right now in the Florida legislature with a new bill in the Senate, Senate Bill 344, by Sen. Bill Montford of North Florida.
We need corporations now more than ever, to make up for the budget deficits other more successful corporations have created for us by artificially deflating the economy like a soggy bicycle tire.
Wasn't it cool how they did that then managed to hold the rest of us up for emergency cash like highway bandits? You gotta hand it to them, man. Success in the good ole US of A.
Indoctrinating our young into how the world really works means getting the names of the various corporations right in their innocent, lazy little faces, bright and early in the morning, baby.
Hey parents don't like it they can suck on it.
Corporations then, corporations now, corporations fo-evuh!
Our Strange Lieutenant Governor
Jan 14, 2012 Tallahassee – Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, God love her, is about the most naïve person on the face of the earth. She must be.She said this at the Florida GOP meeting:
"When the governor selected me to be his running mate, he did not look at the color of my skin," said Carroll, who was the only black Republican in the Legislature in 2010. "He looked at the content of my character and my integrity and work ethic, and what I brought to the table. This is the dream of Dr. King that was realized for me."
No, my dear. with great cynicism Rick Scott looked at the color of your skin as well as your accomplishments, and he made a calculated decision to use your pigment, as well as your considerable previous accomplishments, in order to attempt to cover his tracks when he attacks the voting rights of those who don’t have economic power. And unfortunately that includes people of color all across the state.
With a strange statement like this, one you may have made at his behest, you provide cover to him and you play into every one of his “I’m not such a bad guy after all” fantasies. And you did it on MLK’s holiday.
A shell game moment if there ever was one.
We have now learned two things from Lieutenant governor Carroll.
1. Everywhere Christianity is under attack.
2. Governor Rick Scott, while trying to stamp out voting rights in poor to middle income is the personification of MLK's "I have a dream" speech.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Did Browning Admit the fix is on for 2012?
Here's what he said Jan 11, 2012 as he was bidding us adieu again:
“We’ve put people in place, we’ve put procedures and processes in place to ensure that those elections in August and November will be run and be run well,” Browning said.
Run well? For whom?
As with Rick Scott, sometimes people can't help but tell the truth. He may indeed be telling the truth, the whole truth.
When you're "maintaining" a broken thing, which is Florida's ponzified elections systems, what you're saying is you're actually trying to keep it broken.
Is it broken? Of course it is and everyone knows it. Everyone does. Everyone across the whole country, the whole world knows our elections systems are broken right here in the Sunshine State. Think of that. Our systems have the worst reputation of any state. Rick is patting this guy on the back as he bails out again, before a KEY ELECTION!
"We've put people in place" said Browning.
Does he mean Dawn Roberts, interim secretary of state? The same Dawn Roberts who didn't heed the warnings from Florida Voters Foundation on July 10, 2010 that there were major flaws in the elections systems statewide prior to the election of Rick Scott?
Link to PDF of the warning here.
Or do the people "in place" include David Drury, chief of voter systems certification? The same state department official who appears to have struck some sort of Faustian bargain with voting machine company ESandS before, during, and after the fiasco of 2006 in which there were 18,000 votes missing in the Buchanan v Jennings congressional race in Sarasota County?
Link here
Apparently Drury had agreed on behalf of Florida voters, that he was able to print in the report of the screw up, anything he wished, provided he stated only that, "it's a very nice day" and "My name is David Drury." (Obvious parody and satire).
Drury was in a strange bit of video that I am going to drag up from our archives here. This was after the Sarasota fiasco. Here he is admitting that as part of the certification for voting systems in Florida, his office doesn't do any testing for malicious hacking that would require any sort of special equipment.
Okay, so what precisely does he do with software that has holes in it? I guess he's saying he certifies it, because if you want to exploit those holes from the outside, you need to have some equipment. Funny he mentions the Hursti Hack as needing some extravagant equipment. No really it is. You know what Hursti needed for this hack? His own laptop and a card reader he bought at Radio Shack and a couple of house tools. Here, is the Hursti Hack.
Since 2007, all you need is access to a serial port on the back of the scanning machine. You could upload and download your virus using an iPhone4 with an adapter.
“We’ve put people in place, we’ve put procedures and processes in place to ensure that those elections in August and November will be run and be run well,” Browning said.
Run well? For whom?
As with Rick Scott, sometimes people can't help but tell the truth. He may indeed be telling the truth, the whole truth.
When you're "maintaining" a broken thing, which is Florida's ponzified elections systems, what you're saying is you're actually trying to keep it broken.
Is it broken? Of course it is and everyone knows it. Everyone does. Everyone across the whole country, the whole world knows our elections systems are broken right here in the Sunshine State. Think of that. Our systems have the worst reputation of any state. Rick is patting this guy on the back as he bails out again, before a KEY ELECTION!
"We've put people in place" said Browning.
Does he mean Dawn Roberts, interim secretary of state? The same Dawn Roberts who didn't heed the warnings from Florida Voters Foundation on July 10, 2010 that there were major flaws in the elections systems statewide prior to the election of Rick Scott?
Link to PDF of the warning here.
Or do the people "in place" include David Drury, chief of voter systems certification? The same state department official who appears to have struck some sort of Faustian bargain with voting machine company ESandS before, during, and after the fiasco of 2006 in which there were 18,000 votes missing in the Buchanan v Jennings congressional race in Sarasota County?
Link here
Apparently Drury had agreed on behalf of Florida voters, that he was able to print in the report of the screw up, anything he wished, provided he stated only that, "it's a very nice day" and "My name is David Drury." (Obvious parody and satire).
Drury was in a strange bit of video that I am going to drag up from our archives here. This was after the Sarasota fiasco. Here he is admitting that as part of the certification for voting systems in Florida, his office doesn't do any testing for malicious hacking that would require any sort of special equipment.
Okay, so what precisely does he do with software that has holes in it? I guess he's saying he certifies it, because if you want to exploit those holes from the outside, you need to have some equipment. Funny he mentions the Hursti Hack as needing some extravagant equipment. No really it is. You know what Hursti needed for this hack? His own laptop and a card reader he bought at Radio Shack and a couple of house tools. Here, is the Hursti Hack.
Since 2007, all you need is access to a serial port on the back of the scanning machine. You could upload and download your virus using an iPhone4 with an adapter.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Browning Bails Out Amid Controversy and Did we help?
Saint Petersblog reports the departure of our Sec. of State Kurt Browning on twitter. They broke the story two days ago, which was denied so that Scott could hold the state of the state address controversy free.
Now it can be told that the original story was entirely true.
I want to take a small part of the credit for stirring up a hornets nest with regard to this voting machine business, by demanding answers from Hillsborough County and their screwed up vote.
I want to believe I helped the state in ushering him along to greener pastures. But the likelihood is, I was a small voice and Browning's own notorious behavior as an elected official is what is escorting him into the wilderness. Only history will tell. And right now, it's too early.
The official word is, Browning is resigning perhaps to pursue and elected position with Pasco County, as a schools superintendent, an elected position there.
Scott commended Browning for overseeing fraud free, error free elections. But as we have pointed out on numerous occasions, that's a damned lie. The election of Rick Scott was anything but error free. It had one massive hole in it in Hillsborough County that has never been explained.
It is simply amazing. Everytime Rick Scott, not only glazes over history, but attempts to alter it by calling us t enter his vastly divergent universal reality, I am astounded. With a wave of a wand laced with pixie dust he bids us enter.
Come in, come in. Nothing bad has ever happened with regard to me. All are welcome.
As has been reported in Rick Scott: Enemy of the State, Browning was the inside man, the Werner Von Braun of electronic voting in Florida, all along.
He knows all the secrets about these machines, how they work. If the fix is on for 2012, there's no question someone with Browning's background, connections, and his technical skills, could well have managed it from the remote past of merely few months.
We have to go in and dig around and find out where all the electronic bear traps have been set. If there are any. I think there's every possibility (given the immediate past, given his strange exit now) that they exist.
He took the job after serving as Pasco supervisor of elections for 26 years. Charlie Crist gave him the nod. He is among the first of our secretaries of state to serve at the request of the governor rather than being voted in. Thus, he is, and has been fully partisan toward his political party, and his efforts to crush early voting, stymie the citizenry toward registering others to vote is wholly reflective of that.
As a double dipper he walks away with his salary for the past year and his pension. Now, perhaps, he will become among the state's many triple dippers should he win the position in Pasco County.
He announced his decision to resign the first time, just days before Rick Scott announced his candidacy for governor.
Now it can be told that the original story was entirely true.
I want to take a small part of the credit for stirring up a hornets nest with regard to this voting machine business, by demanding answers from Hillsborough County and their screwed up vote.
I want to believe I helped the state in ushering him along to greener pastures. But the likelihood is, I was a small voice and Browning's own notorious behavior as an elected official is what is escorting him into the wilderness. Only history will tell. And right now, it's too early.
The official word is, Browning is resigning perhaps to pursue and elected position with Pasco County, as a schools superintendent, an elected position there.
Scott commended Browning for overseeing fraud free, error free elections. But as we have pointed out on numerous occasions, that's a damned lie. The election of Rick Scott was anything but error free. It had one massive hole in it in Hillsborough County that has never been explained.
It is simply amazing. Everytime Rick Scott, not only glazes over history, but attempts to alter it by calling us t enter his vastly divergent universal reality, I am astounded. With a wave of a wand laced with pixie dust he bids us enter.
Come in, come in. Nothing bad has ever happened with regard to me. All are welcome.
As has been reported in Rick Scott: Enemy of the State, Browning was the inside man, the Werner Von Braun of electronic voting in Florida, all along.
He knows all the secrets about these machines, how they work. If the fix is on for 2012, there's no question someone with Browning's background, connections, and his technical skills, could well have managed it from the remote past of merely few months.
We have to go in and dig around and find out where all the electronic bear traps have been set. If there are any. I think there's every possibility (given the immediate past, given his strange exit now) that they exist.
He took the job after serving as Pasco supervisor of elections for 26 years. Charlie Crist gave him the nod. He is among the first of our secretaries of state to serve at the request of the governor rather than being voted in. Thus, he is, and has been fully partisan toward his political party, and his efforts to crush early voting, stymie the citizenry toward registering others to vote is wholly reflective of that.
As a double dipper he walks away with his salary for the past year and his pension. Now, perhaps, he will become among the state's many triple dippers should he win the position in Pasco County.
He announced his decision to resign the first time, just days before Rick Scott announced his candidacy for governor.
Flush-a-palooza against Dominion Voting Systems
I am going to be making little journeys to every county commission in the state that has purchased equipment by Diebold, Premier or Dominion Voting systems. There are 32 counties that rely on these systems. I've been to Hillsborough and Brevard. The latter being my home county. Only 30 counties remain. Obviously I am going to need some help from y'all lazy asses out there. (I mean that in a loving way, seriously... and I mean that.)
Why do this? Because we need to get Dominion out of Florida. It's our responsibility as citizens here. Dominion voting, a company based in Toronto, with American HQ in Denver purchased all the bad assets and software from Diebold's voting systems division, named Premier, in 2010.
Yes, the gear is still shit; still hackable, slill glitchy, still crap, garbage, vulnerable and so on. And, that's not your fault nor is it mine that this company Dominion decided to gain dominion over 50 percent of the voting machine market in the US by purchasing this feces from Diebold. That's their tough feces. Not yours.
A state of no-confidence exists here. Surely if there were an elected official performing as badly as this company, if he or she were screwing up as many elections, you'd get to say something about it as a citizen. You'd be able to impeach them and so on. Give them the hook.
Well, you can't. Public officials blithely ram their soft fingertips into their empty ears, shake their faces back and forth, stick their tongues out and go "blablaballalla" and "I can't HEAR YOU. I can't HEAR YOU," when you tell them that what they ought to do is rip this shit out by the roots and get rid of it, because it keeps screwing up our democracy.
What's the point if the machines don't work? Is it to participate in democracyLITE, to be "engaged" in a process that is a ministerial nod to the past?
"Ahh remember real voting, Agnes, my love?"
"Indeed I do Georgie. Those were the days, I tell you, when you actually thought you might make a difference with your vote."
"Shall our murder-suicide be by shotgun, Agnes, my love; now that they've decided to tear our wee house down to put up a strip mall, suffering not a word of dissent from the likes of thee and me?"
"I should rather like some cyanide in a spot of tea, Georgie."
"Earl Grey, my love?
"Be a dear, won't you?"
Go to stop this eventuality like Scrooge racing to save Tiny Tim; rush down to the county commission chambers ready to participate in local democracy, and, and....."Nyyayyayyya I can't HEAR YOU, Mr. Kearns. Nnnnnnnnyyyyyya nnnyyyyya nnnnyyyya nanee nannneee boo boo, I am sorry your time is up!"
In my book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State, I discuss the "corporate blood trail" and the revolving "orgy" that has been the existence of these voting machines. Those which began hacking our elections in 2000 under the name GES. As we have established here in previous posts, the software remains the same as does the very equipment in runs on, with a nod to the present in the form of a new logo: "Dominion".
In previous posts I told you about my visit to Hillsborough and my chat with the elections supervisor and his staff, and this was also spelled out in the book.
People aren't listening so we have to turn up the volume.
In Hillsborough for instance, when I appeared before the commission, I echoed the words of Commissioner Mark Sharpe who voiced disgust with the machine company in the quote "heads should roll over this." He said that in the Tampa Tribune on Nov. 3, 2010.You would think with a comment like that in the newspaper "heads should roll" that gosh-golly if Mr. Sharpe was mad in 2010, by January 2012 he'd be ready to explode, right?
Nnnnnat rrrrrrreally. No, Mr. Sharpe said, very calmly, that we should all be "concerned" (there's that word again, nonjudgmental as a day at Montessori School) about counting every blessed vote. Then he told me there would be a written reply from the Hills' elections supervisor on the matter. Then he said Hills' Supervisor Leonard told him there was a hiccup in an optical scan machine, a glitch....or something.
Yes, they were getting right on it. This explanation, which has never come in writing to anyone, remains the same. The word "glitch" apparently is made of fairy dust. Because after an official says this word, we all go to sleep.
Brevard? Not much better. The commissioners were arguing so hard yesterday, and sniping about one thing or another. And then - in a crueler version of hell - they were arguing about how much sniping was going on. So they clean forgot to call us up to the podium! To his credit, Chairman Chuck Nelson, did remember after being reminded.
I gave much the same presentation I offered in Hillsborough. For a moment the entire commission, known statewide now for its contentious bickering, was unified.... in utter, silent disinterest.
Here's someone telling you: "listen, the voting systems are completely corrupted. Yes, yes. I know how I must seem to you; having written a book called Rick Scott Enemy of the State I am hardly an impartial witness. But look here, at all these news articles I am holding! This really happened. This machine, over in Hillsborough erased 38,000 votes! Pretend you don't believe me. Pretend that our elections aren't being rigged. Fine. That doesn't change the fact that these machines suck out loud, does it? Hello?"
Snore. I get nothing here at this point. Thank you, be on your way.
My local infotainment vehicle this morning, Florida Today was too deep in slumber to even cover the sniping bit at the Brevard County Commission meeting; which, back in my day as a news reporter, would have been red, red meat, brother. I mean that was some kick-ass sniping going on. We would have been all over it!
What's happening with news? If I have asked it once I've said it a million times: what gives? It's like trying to wake the dead! This morning we got a nice story about a woman pleased as all get out, that her gigantic pet snake came back to her house, unharmed. Well, thank God for that.
County Commissions out there?
Expect me. I hope ( this is a hint and the audience participation segment of the evening) to be joined by others one day, who will do two things. And these are easy. They don't cost a thing.
1. Contact your office of county supervisor of elections and ask them if the county voting machines are made by Dominion, Diebold or Premier.
2. If the answer is yes, go down to your next county commissioners meeting sign up to speak, and tell them to get rid of that damned junk because of what happened in Hillsborough County: 38,000 erased votes that we STILL! STILL! don't have an answer on.
I am providing links here of my two presentations to give you an idea what you may want to say.
Hillsborough County Meeting Jan. 5. We come in at 1:12:20
Brevard County Meeting Jan. 10 we come in at 50:50.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Gaetz floats his trial turd on missing emails.
About one of the funniest things to come down the pike (lately) in all of this is a motion by future Florida senate leader Don Gaetz (R- Niceville) to gain support for a new bill.
His bill would make it mandatory - mandatory I tell you! - for transitional governments to keep their emails prior to taking office. Seems to make sense doesn't it? It's only fair, and commonsense for them to do that 'n all, because shucks! They might just get up to all kinds of hootenany with their hiring decisions if they were able to cut deals and so on, on the sly like, in their email chats.
So, Gaetz says, we'll put a stop to that by making it illegal for people to delete their email accounts in between the time they get elected and when they take office! Hyuilk!
Only trouble is, IT ALREADY IS ILLEGAL! It has been for some time! Gaetz doesn't think anyone outside of Tally knows about Florida's Government in the Sunshine Law which has provisions for this all spelled out since the 1990s. We've had email and the internet since the 1990s, by the way, Senator Gaetz. We're you aware of that?
I guess this trick is so old, some of us have forgotten how it works. You break a law, then get one of your buddies to say "well, if the law was only written more clearly, this sort of thing wouldn't have happened in the first place."
This is a variant of the "soft owning" we discuss in our new book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State. You may recall from the book "soft owning" was when someone commits an atrocity, or in Rick Scott's multiple cases, has someone do it for him, then looks into a camera with as much sincerity as he can muster and says "I accept responsibility for that which happened...because a staff member did it. Yes, I accept responsibility, because I am the top dog in this outfit."
Of course we know what they are saying "someone else did this, and that someone has been fired and likely paid money to keep schtum."
What's happening here is something that happens just about every time someone commits an ethics violation. It happened when Mike Haridpopolos was slapped on the wrist. Several members of the legislature even Gary Siplin a democrat, said Florida's ethics rules weren't clear enough and needed to be redefined.
It's not going to work Senator Gaetz. Not this time.
This fig leaf comes as an investigation is happening into the illegal destruction of emails our governor authorized or did so by omission, or by accident. There is no excuse. No way out, nothing that plays.
This move on Gaetz's part hints to how the FDLE non-investigation is going. They need to float a trial turd and see if the public will swallow the explanation that the law called Sunshine isn't clear enough and needs to be strengthened and the neophytes in Team Scott essentially aren't to blame.
I don't know about you, but I am tired of swallowing the feces.
Don't you believe the misdirection.
His bill would make it mandatory - mandatory I tell you! - for transitional governments to keep their emails prior to taking office. Seems to make sense doesn't it? It's only fair, and commonsense for them to do that 'n all, because shucks! They might just get up to all kinds of hootenany with their hiring decisions if they were able to cut deals and so on, on the sly like, in their email chats.
So, Gaetz says, we'll put a stop to that by making it illegal for people to delete their email accounts in between the time they get elected and when they take office! Hyuilk!
Only trouble is, IT ALREADY IS ILLEGAL! It has been for some time! Gaetz doesn't think anyone outside of Tally knows about Florida's Government in the Sunshine Law which has provisions for this all spelled out since the 1990s. We've had email and the internet since the 1990s, by the way, Senator Gaetz. We're you aware of that?
I guess this trick is so old, some of us have forgotten how it works. You break a law, then get one of your buddies to say "well, if the law was only written more clearly, this sort of thing wouldn't have happened in the first place."
This is a variant of the "soft owning" we discuss in our new book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State. You may recall from the book "soft owning" was when someone commits an atrocity, or in Rick Scott's multiple cases, has someone do it for him, then looks into a camera with as much sincerity as he can muster and says "I accept responsibility for that which happened...because a staff member did it. Yes, I accept responsibility, because I am the top dog in this outfit."
Of course we know what they are saying "someone else did this, and that someone has been fired and likely paid money to keep schtum."
What's happening here is something that happens just about every time someone commits an ethics violation. It happened when Mike Haridpopolos was slapped on the wrist. Several members of the legislature even Gary Siplin a democrat, said Florida's ethics rules weren't clear enough and needed to be redefined.
It's not going to work Senator Gaetz. Not this time.
This fig leaf comes as an investigation is happening into the illegal destruction of emails our governor authorized or did so by omission, or by accident. There is no excuse. No way out, nothing that plays.
This move on Gaetz's part hints to how the FDLE non-investigation is going. They need to float a trial turd and see if the public will swallow the explanation that the law called Sunshine isn't clear enough and needs to be strengthened and the neophytes in Team Scott essentially aren't to blame.
I don't know about you, but I am tired of swallowing the feces.
Don't you believe the misdirection.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Our comments to the Hillsborough County Commission 1/5/2012
The following were the comments we gave at the Hillsborough (Tampa) County Commission yesterday.
Here's the link for the video. Our part comes in at 1:12:20
Here's the link for the video. Our part comes in at 1:12:20
Good morning. My name is David Kearns. I am an author from Palm Bay just across the state in Brevard.
I am here concerning irregularities in the office of supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County which I was made aware of in research for my book, Rick Scott, Enemy of the State.
During the election night there were 38,000 ballots, reportedly, rescanned back into the voting machines at the Falkenburg Road annex. News of this made the major newspapers as well the television stations.
A County Commissioner was quoted in the Tampa Tribune on Nov. 4, 2010 saying “There’s no excuse. We spent all that money and those machines: they should work. I think heads are going to roll over this.”
The same article mentions that the glitched ballots came to early voting places in five areas, including Temple Terrace, and other places. These glitched early voted ballots came in the last three days of early voting says one news account. This article I am holding says this number represents more than half the early voted ballots cast in late October.
As a comparison it represents 65 percent of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. You would need to walk 142 down it length to get to the 38,000th name. This is no minor glitch as everyone, from the media to county officials has called it. 38,000 of something, represents a major amount. A major screw up requiring a major investigation.
We add this to the irregularities in this office coming in previous years.
There has been no report, broadly issued, with regard to Dominion voting machines as referenced in the in your commissioner’s statement. No word indicating any inquiry has ever happened with regard to these ballots, which, therefore, remain tainted. And thereby tainting the result, thereby tainting the election of our governor.
We get the same we always get from Hillsborough County, “glitch” defective and so on, followed by a promise that it shall never ever happen again, whereupon it does happen again, and this time much worse than ever.
38,000. The number is not only large it is one that generates suspicion. In that if you added this to Alex Sink’s vote totals tallied by the department of state you’d bring these two contenders, Sink and Scott within half a percent difference over total votes cast, .44 precisely. Necessitating a recount which never happened.
I call for an immediate investigation of the general election as it was handled in Hillsborough County. I have filed a complaint with the Florida Department of State. I have sent inquiries to the US Department of Justice. I ask all of you to do what is right and hold an inquiry yourselves. If there has been one, we in other parts of the state have heard nothing about it. Media blackout.
I call for all counties currently using Dominion, Premier Diebold machines in the state of Florida to abandon these systems until there is some accountability on the part of these companies. Until at the very least we know precisely what happened here in Hillsborough on these machines.
I call for a system of mandatory auditing for every general election as proposed by the Fair Voting Coalition of Florida.
We need to take back our democracy from the machines and the corporations who now control our legislators, our department of state, our supervisors of elections, and our county commissions.
Thank you
David Kearns
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