Purgatory USA

I have been holding off talking about my latest conversation with the Florida Department of Law  Enforcement.

Reviewing, if you've just joined us. I have filed a complaint against the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections for violation of our open public records laws. I maintain they are and were illegally withholding documents I have requested relative to the conduct of the election of Nov.2, 2010: yes, the one in which Rick Scott was elected. I have said this election was mishandled at best, the result of a rigged election at worst.

But here's where we are. There's no way in hell they are going to investigate my complaint against the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections. I have accepted that. But if you can believe it's possible they went a step further than inactivity with regard to this issue. They apparently put it in purgatory. I laid it out pretty good. They can either send it to the state attorney, or drop it. Seems after weeks and weeks they would by now, know which way they are going to go. The facts are straightforward: either the subjects did as stated - and I have videos and I have records of my conversations and emails on this blog - or they did not. Inactivity seems implausible, bespeaking of recalcitrance to move on the obvious.

As an investigative body of the state of Florida they can investigate, rule the allegations groundless and not investigate further, or they can do what they are apparently doing with my complaint, keep it "open" in name only, sit on it, and let it go nowhere.

If they investigate it; fine. If they don't; fine. If they don't and they close it, there will be a public record of their findings leading them to the  conclusion that the allegations were in error or groundless. That's a record that can be reviewed and I might get some information as to why the records were unavailable. On what legal grounds, or whether records were lost or destroyed or never existed at all.

But in claiming it is still "open" and not actually doing anything with it, I get nothing in the way of information. Not a blessed thing. Investigators are prohibited from releasing records from an open investigation. Which is great from the perspective of those wishing to conceal what may be a crime. The perfect black hole into which no light ever shines, nor escapes from.

I called Agent Thompson two days ago. I kept reviewing in my mind the recording of her voice on my cell telling me once again there was "nothing to report." I think this time she said "there has been no change." And, this last time, I could have sworn I heard a smirk in there when she called me to report this. As though just after talking to an office mate she said "hold on a second, I gotta call this whack job." I'm sure it's  my imagination but maybe not, maybe my insanity is the fact I am able to detect these things.

So I called her, then she called me back. Again, "there's been no change." This time I sort of went off. Not cursing and so forth but, definitely with a chiding tone.  I told her that if she had nothing to report then I certainly did.

I told her my deepest wish, the dream I have every night, is that someone in state government is going to grow a spine and a conscience and do their job, enforce the laws, obey the laws and so on. Come to think of it, this was on 9-11. I told her there were dozens, hundreds of cops who walked into those towers knowing any second they could come down. Half of the public workers, cops, and firefighters who went into those buildings to protect the citizens, knew damned well they weren't coming out again, but they did it anyway. Because it was their job, and they had personal courage.

That's not what we have here in Florida, I said. We have a state being run by criminals. We have people stealing elections. We have people hiding, losing or destroying public records. I said I hold very little hope FDLE is taking me seriously. After all this was the agency that waited ten months to tell us that the governor, who "lost" hundreds, maybe thousands of transitional government emails on three different technologies did so accidentally, or at least there was no proof he did so intentionally.

At this point she put me on speaker phone, but what the hell do I care. I said "what good are all these laws if no one enforces them?" No answer of course. There is no answer to a question like this is there. I continued on about the men and women who walk into burning buildings. I said they risk more than a police officer or a detective who refrains from pressing forward with a case for political or career reasons: no response.

I then thanked her and hung up.

We'll see if this means anything. It likely won't. Because this is the real world, where real people don't do there jobs. Where the powerful do whatever the fuck they want and the state agencies look the other way.

This is the real world, of election rigging and made up wars, and if I am rich I send  my kid to Yale while I send yours off to fight those wars to improve my stock portfolio. And fuck you twice as hard on Sunday while I kill your child.

This is the real world we are creating here in Florida, here in the United States of America as well.

Purgatory USA.

Stuffing the ballot box has never been so easy!

Florida's variation on the theme this year is a ballot which in some places like Miami Dade will run ten pages long. Why? Because the eleven amendment referenda items  - all eleven of them up for a vote - will be written out entirely. Lengthy legalese designed to confuse and intimidate and waste man-eons of time.

This has the designed effect of creating longer lines; thereby turning voters away. Cut the number of booths down? You've stuffed the voting booths. Which has the same affect as stuffing the ballot box.

To "help you" deal with this "problem" the supervisors of elections are being coached to "offer" the "solution" of mailing in your ballot! Yay!

Just don't opt for this lie. Just suffer through their bullshit and vote your ballot yourselves. Please.

Pinellas County just mailed out 242,000 absentee ballots!! There are just over 600,000 registered voters in the county. Are we saying nearly half of the voters of Pinellas live overseas? Are they on assignment for the Department of State? Are they working on air craft carriers? No. They just want to vote by mail. Which of course in the next election cycle with be voting via internet. And then we will have completely and totally lost whatever slim handle we have had on democracy.

Yay! Go us!

Here's a sample of what we're dealing with in Brevard County Florida. Well meaning go-alongs from our local occupy movement were more than happy to post this promotional. And you have to wonder where it comes from? Can you say, "the Republican supervisor of elections?"

Note the smiling minority female in the picture. Why, she would never steer us wrong! How do we know? Because being a smiling minority female she's concerned with women's' AND minority issues! Of course. That must be the answer. Note how I am attacked immediately for suggesting voting by mail is a bad idea.

You know you're right when they never address the issue in the counter arguments. After all the scientific veracity of the "what's wrong with you?" counter-argument can never be checked using history, statistical analysis, or even a logic flow-chart.

And here's a clue to all of us! Just because a group uses the word "Occupy" in their name, there's no guarantee they represent the 99 percent, 100 percent of the time!

"Hey! That's false advertising!" you say. "There ought to be a law!" And can you believe it? There's not. It's the internet. Remember?

BradBlog rates voting an absentee ballot for political change about as ineffective as perhaps farting into a shoe-box in order to combat global warming. He has amassed example after example after example.

Of course, if you try to tell anyone any of this these days, for some reason or other, they resist you with all their mighty-might.

That's enough for now. More soon.

Things Still Not Making Sense in Pinellas

Recall: Primary election Aug. 14, 2012. 36,000 ballots that were stored in USB flash drivers, were driven to the elections office rather than modem'd over the network. Still no answer on chain of custody questions we have asked - namely who controls the flash drives in transit? Are they supervised to prevent swap-out?

The official answer as per press release is that a "gateway device" failed. But in the same press release, Pinellas officials also say they could find no defect with the device. But, they replaced the device all the same, since it was obviously "defective." Of course this makes no sense. Essentially the logic flow chart on this press release (Fig.A.) is a an illogical loop (Fig. B.) running to the far right of the page which ends at the desired result for public dissemination called "All Better". Like that, kids? that's how stupid you are according to them.

Also, the "conduct of election report" a legal document - a press release really isn't - a report to the division of elections which if you lie on it, you're in big trouble. Makes no mention of the gateway device, only what was done to work around a problem that may not exist, had no resolution in terms of cause. (Fig. C.)

Fig. A.

Fig. B

Fig. C.