Rick Scott Watch
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Bush's End-Run? Well, Florida's a lock so why not?
In case you missed Rachel Maddow's show last night she did a wonderfully informative piece on the possibility of a Jeb Bush run for the White House, via electronic write in. Watch and then return to us for a renewed discussion on our crappy, riggable election systems here in Florida.
On-line voting, on-line primary, on-line candidate hatched through a process that isn't audited, isn't public, for all anyone knows the result of a thousand people employed by Rick Scott and the Koch's sitting in a room mashing vote buttons over and over . Oh, and in all 50 states.
And what state better for such a machine hatched fake candidate to steal the electoral votes than here in Florida with 29 up for grabs in a truly swing state! A state that has Rick Scott for governor, in control of Kurt Browning who is in control of the rigged elections!
Wowsers! What a deal? And Florida? Yep. That's Bush territory.
But Bush isn't running. No. He just has several former strategy people well placed within Team Rick Scott, Team Rick Perry and elsewhere.
Now call me crazy again. Tell me our democracy isn't in danger. Tell me you feel safe relying on systems which glitched 38,000 votes in Hillsborough County and gave us Rick Scott.
Here's the link for Americans Elect.
See my previous stories concerning Florida' rigged election systems by typing in "rigged elections" in the search box.
Or download my book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State using the link provided in this sentence.
On-line voting, on-line primary, on-line candidate hatched through a process that isn't audited, isn't public, for all anyone knows the result of a thousand people employed by Rick Scott and the Koch's sitting in a room mashing vote buttons over and over . Oh, and in all 50 states.
And what state better for such a machine hatched fake candidate to steal the electoral votes than here in Florida with 29 up for grabs in a truly swing state! A state that has Rick Scott for governor, in control of Kurt Browning who is in control of the rigged elections!
Wowsers! What a deal? And Florida? Yep. That's Bush territory.
But Bush isn't running. No. He just has several former strategy people well placed within Team Rick Scott, Team Rick Perry and elsewhere.
Now call me crazy again. Tell me our democracy isn't in danger. Tell me you feel safe relying on systems which glitched 38,000 votes in Hillsborough County and gave us Rick Scott.
Here's the link for Americans Elect.
See my previous stories concerning Florida' rigged election systems by typing in "rigged elections" in the search box.
Monday, December 12, 2011
I don't know what a "Gannett" is. Help me.
Do you know? I don't, and I used to work for one. This one in fact.
We have this thing in Brevard County Florida. It's called a "Gannett". I don't know what it is. Perhaps you have one too.
It claims to be a newspaper but it's not. It just sits there like a sphinx that charges extortionately for advertising. Our Gannett goes by the name "Florida Today." How about yours?
Often what it produces as far as "news" is rather fluffy and light. What now comes out of this Gannett more often than not, was once called "infotainment," or "advertorial," or "evergreen," which meant it could run at any time. These are kisses to the community that seldom inform. They seldom give us information we can use to club corrupt officials over the head with. Which is what newspapering used to be all about, keeping those officials in check.
Back in my day, there were a dozen charming insults for these "journalistic" offerings which are designed to break up the news copy. Now the news copy, if it makes it out of this Gannett at all, is bobbing out in a sea of "evergreen". A little man in a boat shouting to us a mile from shore on a windy day.
What's that he saying? See him waving there?
Wave back. Smile. Go back to sleep.
You see, at our local Gannett, they've run all the investigative newspaper reporters out and silenced the remainder. How about yours?
Public opinion? I've heard it spoken of in other parts of the state. But we here in Brevard County have had all of that taken away from us, you see. Gannett says it's all for the best. A thing of the past, "opinion". Soon the very word itself will be illegal. Just now it's unfashionable; dirty, to be stifled with contracts of legal gibberish that no one can read.
What's that? I'm a liar? Really?
Below you will find a link to the Magna Carta of "terms of use" Faustian contracts.
I ran into this document after I was attempting to post a comment to the Gannett concerning an all-expenses paid trip to Israel taken by our governor and our local politician Senator Mike Haripopolos.
Unsatisfied in insulting us by taking this trip that likely won't result in anything more than fake-job fanfare and spread sheet pointing, Mikey has to also go the extra and write to us from the road so we are sure to get good and angry. And our Gannett is here to help pave the way for that anger.
I found it odd Mike would be posting about God so early in his missives. I thought he'd leave it till late in the game; not make us swallow so much crap right out of the gate.
No. Let the irony commence immediately.
Our Gannett makes it so that one must sign onto Facebook first, before one is permitted to comment to online ditties such as a strangely self serving piece by Senator Mike in the form of Israel diaries. But the filtering and moderation doesn't stop there.
No. I can't even see what the other writers are saying about Mike's missives just now, and I know those comments are good. I just know they are scathing! As they should be!
Hush children. No. Gannett knows best. Gannett mind rapes you with the rage of knowing you're paying for this hypocrite to bob his head at the Western Wall, then jot down his empty headed little gibberish about God. And there you are, left in your own room of rage, stewing in the knowledge that your comment has just been sent to a moderator's hell with the others. And no one will see those words.
The Gannett will wait, and wait, and wait before posting them until everyone has moved on with their day, until we've had enough and moved on. The comments will then be dissolved electronically.
Why? Why do this?
Well it's a Gannett, after all, children. It doesn't do anything. It feigns its own industry. It smothered up the market of news ages ago. Like Walmart, it categorically killed off, or swallowed up the competition. When another would raise its head above the blades of grass, the Gannett merely lowered its advertising rates and wiped those silly competitors out in a week.
So we, like the muffled hog-tied victim have to sit here and take it from our Gannett when they offer us brain droppings from ethically challenged Mike Haridopolos, phoning in his sanctimony from Israel, on a trip we all paid for.
Thanks Gannett. Thanks a yahoo.
Kindly read the Magna Carta of all "terms of use" contracts offered by our Gannett.
We have this thing in Brevard County Florida. It's called a "Gannett". I don't know what it is. Perhaps you have one too.
It claims to be a newspaper but it's not. It just sits there like a sphinx that charges extortionately for advertising. Our Gannett goes by the name "Florida Today." How about yours?
Often what it produces as far as "news" is rather fluffy and light. What now comes out of this Gannett more often than not, was once called "infotainment," or "advertorial," or "evergreen," which meant it could run at any time. These are kisses to the community that seldom inform. They seldom give us information we can use to club corrupt officials over the head with. Which is what newspapering used to be all about, keeping those officials in check.
Back in my day, there were a dozen charming insults for these "journalistic" offerings which are designed to break up the news copy. Now the news copy, if it makes it out of this Gannett at all, is bobbing out in a sea of "evergreen". A little man in a boat shouting to us a mile from shore on a windy day.
What's that he saying? See him waving there?
Wave back. Smile. Go back to sleep.
You see, at our local Gannett, they've run all the investigative newspaper reporters out and silenced the remainder. How about yours?
Public opinion? I've heard it spoken of in other parts of the state. But we here in Brevard County have had all of that taken away from us, you see. Gannett says it's all for the best. A thing of the past, "opinion". Soon the very word itself will be illegal. Just now it's unfashionable; dirty, to be stifled with contracts of legal gibberish that no one can read.
What's that? I'm a liar? Really?
Below you will find a link to the Magna Carta of "terms of use" Faustian contracts.
I ran into this document after I was attempting to post a comment to the Gannett concerning an all-expenses paid trip to Israel taken by our governor and our local politician Senator Mike Haripopolos.
Unsatisfied in insulting us by taking this trip that likely won't result in anything more than fake-job fanfare and spread sheet pointing, Mikey has to also go the extra and write to us from the road so we are sure to get good and angry. And our Gannett is here to help pave the way for that anger.
I found it odd Mike would be posting about God so early in his missives. I thought he'd leave it till late in the game; not make us swallow so much crap right out of the gate.
No. Let the irony commence immediately.
Our Gannett makes it so that one must sign onto Facebook first, before one is permitted to comment to online ditties such as a strangely self serving piece by Senator Mike in the form of Israel diaries. But the filtering and moderation doesn't stop there.
No. I can't even see what the other writers are saying about Mike's missives just now, and I know those comments are good. I just know they are scathing! As they should be!
Hush children. No. Gannett knows best. Gannett mind rapes you with the rage of knowing you're paying for this hypocrite to bob his head at the Western Wall, then jot down his empty headed little gibberish about God. And there you are, left in your own room of rage, stewing in the knowledge that your comment has just been sent to a moderator's hell with the others. And no one will see those words.
The Gannett will wait, and wait, and wait before posting them until everyone has moved on with their day, until we've had enough and moved on. The comments will then be dissolved electronically.
Why? Why do this?
Well it's a Gannett, after all, children. It doesn't do anything. It feigns its own industry. It smothered up the market of news ages ago. Like Walmart, it categorically killed off, or swallowed up the competition. When another would raise its head above the blades of grass, the Gannett merely lowered its advertising rates and wiped those silly competitors out in a week.
So we, like the muffled hog-tied victim have to sit here and take it from our Gannett when they offer us brain droppings from ethically challenged Mike Haridopolos, phoning in his sanctimony from Israel, on a trip we all paid for.
Thanks Gannett. Thanks a yahoo.
Kindly read the Magna Carta of all "terms of use" contracts offered by our Gannett.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
"Closet" Democrats Everywhere
Oh, it's bad. It's a damn shame. It's like a sickness. A sickness of cowardice. A disease.
I had a bagel this morning with an old friend of mine who worked with me, years back, on a daily news-rag.
And she told me something that just about made me sick to my stomach. She said that during a Bill Nelson fundraiser held at a swanky country club in Indian River County, the media were kept out not by republican thugs adversarial to the press.
Oh no. No. It was the democrats themselves who fought to keep the press out, especially the photographers. Why? Because the social stigma, and the business repercussions of admitting affiliation with the democratic party! These were potentially too great to risk!
So be a dear and put your cameras down and not ask who's in here donating a measly $25 per plate in a milquetoast effort to - yeah yeah- "support" Bill Nelson.
"Good God! After all, so and so down the street might just discover we are (gasp!) associated with Bill Nelson! OMG and he's, like, one step away from Mao!"
"Heavens, and our business might dry up, to-boot!"
I have one question: what the hell is this, Northern Ireland? Are we living in Ulster? Are we living in the days of Sinn Fein? I mean, where is Gerry Adams when you need him? What's next? A wall? Murals? Hostages? Bombs? Barbed wired? Where the hell is this? Is this America?
Is it now illegal to be a democrat?
What is going on? And democrats? What a bunch of craven cowards! When was the last time you heard of a republican ashamed to admit he was a republican? What the hell is wrong with you people? Seriously. How do you expect your man to have a fighting chance to get re-elected if you're too damned chickenshit to claim him as your own?
Is this what it comes down to? Your "friends" might make your business dry up? Wait? In addition to not inviting you to their next party?
Do you have "friends" like this? If so what sort of a weak sap are you, if you have "friends" like this? If you stomach these sort of friends, what sort of a craven gutless social weakling are you? How do you gaze in the mirror? How do you meet your own eyes?
If these are your friends and you are still sucking up to a social set capable of this sort of behavior you have no soul; you have no core; you have no right, to call yourself a democrat. You, my friend, don't get it. And you likely never will. You are a limousine liberal. The worst kind, a cowardly one. You need to seek another political party that has no core, no spine, no soul, no objectives, no principles other than self interest. No social conscience.
Hey! They're called republicans. Look into it. Leave the good works to people who care.
And this sort of cowardice isn't isolated to Indian River County either. No. My local newspaper Florida Today just shoveled along the last serious investigative reporter they had - Jeff Schweers- to greener pastures elsewhere. Arizona I am hearing. Where the local Gannett paper there will likely keep him locked in a corporately sanitized muffled muted hamster cage, just the way they did here.
I have seen weekly newspapers offering more news content, more push back to tyranny, than our Gannett rag these days. I mean, it's bad. I swear to God. It's...I don't even like to admit I used to work there. Godawful. Shameful. Literally, like reading a baby-food package.
Cowardly retreat from corporate tyranny is not confined to newspapers, either.
I have actually heard that local teachers are too afraid of being labeled as "anti-christian" to offer support for our local candidate for the Florida house; too cowardly to help unseat a republican thug who thinks dwarf tossing is a remedy for our ailing economy. A thug who votes lock step with the ongoing efforts to (wait for it) dismantle public education. The same effort whose ugly natural conclusion is these same teachers reapplying for their old jobs, at half pay and no benefits from a big-box learning corporation.
Teachers won't step up to unseat our dwarf tossing republican who hates teachers; because they are too insipidly concerned for the social stigma, and reduced opportunity for advancement, should they be "outed" as a democrat.
Dig that.
Talk about being brainwashed to vote against your own interests; apparently, just like during the days of the inquisition, all you have to do to get the masses to kow-tow is tell them they are going to hell if they start to think, if they start to look out for themselves. If they dare to raise their heads up and look at what's really going on; sure, they're "hell-bound" See? They're "baby killers". They "don't support the troops". The "d" word.
And some of you democrats fall for this? How dare you call yourselves democrats. How dare you say you are "progressive" or you are "liberal?"
Until you show some spine, stand up and fight, you don't have the right to use these words in describing yourself.
I had a bagel this morning with an old friend of mine who worked with me, years back, on a daily news-rag.
And she told me something that just about made me sick to my stomach. She said that during a Bill Nelson fundraiser held at a swanky country club in Indian River County, the media were kept out not by republican thugs adversarial to the press.
Oh no. No. It was the democrats themselves who fought to keep the press out, especially the photographers. Why? Because the social stigma, and the business repercussions of admitting affiliation with the democratic party! These were potentially too great to risk!
So be a dear and put your cameras down and not ask who's in here donating a measly $25 per plate in a milquetoast effort to - yeah yeah- "support" Bill Nelson.
"Good God! After all, so and so down the street might just discover we are (gasp!) associated with Bill Nelson! OMG and he's, like, one step away from Mao!"
"Heavens, and our business might dry up, to-boot!"
I have one question: what the hell is this, Northern Ireland? Are we living in Ulster? Are we living in the days of Sinn Fein? I mean, where is Gerry Adams when you need him? What's next? A wall? Murals? Hostages? Bombs? Barbed wired? Where the hell is this? Is this America?
Is it now illegal to be a democrat?
What is going on? And democrats? What a bunch of craven cowards! When was the last time you heard of a republican ashamed to admit he was a republican? What the hell is wrong with you people? Seriously. How do you expect your man to have a fighting chance to get re-elected if you're too damned chickenshit to claim him as your own?
Is this what it comes down to? Your "friends" might make your business dry up? Wait? In addition to not inviting you to their next party?
Do you have "friends" like this? If so what sort of a weak sap are you, if you have "friends" like this? If you stomach these sort of friends, what sort of a craven gutless social weakling are you? How do you gaze in the mirror? How do you meet your own eyes?
If these are your friends and you are still sucking up to a social set capable of this sort of behavior you have no soul; you have no core; you have no right, to call yourself a democrat. You, my friend, don't get it. And you likely never will. You are a limousine liberal. The worst kind, a cowardly one. You need to seek another political party that has no core, no spine, no soul, no objectives, no principles other than self interest. No social conscience.
Hey! They're called republicans. Look into it. Leave the good works to people who care.
And this sort of cowardice isn't isolated to Indian River County either. No. My local newspaper Florida Today just shoveled along the last serious investigative reporter they had - Jeff Schweers- to greener pastures elsewhere. Arizona I am hearing. Where the local Gannett paper there will likely keep him locked in a corporately sanitized muffled muted hamster cage, just the way they did here.
I have seen weekly newspapers offering more news content, more push back to tyranny, than our Gannett rag these days. I mean, it's bad. I swear to God. It's...I don't even like to admit I used to work there. Godawful. Shameful. Literally, like reading a baby-food package.
Cowardly retreat from corporate tyranny is not confined to newspapers, either.
I have actually heard that local teachers are too afraid of being labeled as "anti-christian" to offer support for our local candidate for the Florida house; too cowardly to help unseat a republican thug who thinks dwarf tossing is a remedy for our ailing economy. A thug who votes lock step with the ongoing efforts to (wait for it) dismantle public education. The same effort whose ugly natural conclusion is these same teachers reapplying for their old jobs, at half pay and no benefits from a big-box learning corporation.
Teachers won't step up to unseat our dwarf tossing republican who hates teachers; because they are too insipidly concerned for the social stigma, and reduced opportunity for advancement, should they be "outed" as a democrat.
Dig that.
Talk about being brainwashed to vote against your own interests; apparently, just like during the days of the inquisition, all you have to do to get the masses to kow-tow is tell them they are going to hell if they start to think, if they start to look out for themselves. If they dare to raise their heads up and look at what's really going on; sure, they're "hell-bound" See? They're "baby killers". They "don't support the troops". The "d" word.
And some of you democrats fall for this? How dare you call yourselves democrats. How dare you say you are "progressive" or you are "liberal?"
Until you show some spine, stand up and fight, you don't have the right to use these words in describing yourself.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tax Breaks for Big Corp at Work
Just before I got fired for doing my job as a newspaper reporter (and doing it well), I wrote this article:
I had no choice but to write it. Some things you can't ignore; not and call yourself a reporter. There I am sitting at a city council meeting, and in comes this distraught woman. She's been canned from DRS/Finmeccanica (weapon's maker) at the same moment the company is taking massive tax breaks and incentives to move their major operations from Palm Bay into the neighboring city of Melbourne.
The move, costing Melbourne city taxpayers $650,000 in tax incentives and road improvements, was touted as a way to bring in 10 high paying jobs into Brevard County, and retain 450 more.
But the woman, Heike Alpert, said she was only one of 17 employees being laid off in the move, that very day! Which by 8th grade math is -7 jobs.
How perverse are these people, by the way? Fire 17 employees the same week you're getting tax cheese for "bringing in jobs".
Let's see that means for every job lost, $92,857 was paid. Oh but $85,000 was paid to improve roads for the company. And since those improvements remain behind, let's deduct that as we need to be totally fair to everyone included and, yep, $565,000/-7 that makes, -$80,714
Yes, the city paid a corporation $80,714 per full time position nixed, and collateral damaged ten more newly minted "I lost my job" zombies sent to the unemployment lines.
The city said "here's money, so you can fire some workers! Have at it!"
No? That's not what they said? Not fair? It wasn't quite like that? City fathers thought they were doing the right thing? Yeah?
Yeah because the company essentially said, if you don't give us this money, 450 employees, who we are now holding hostage, can't remain in Brevard County any more, bitches! And we'll fire all their asses, or we'll send them to New Jersey! Because we are just that damned crazy!'
No? That's not how it works? I'm being harsh again, am I?
Wake up. That's how these deals work more often than you'd care to know and no one ever calls them on it! What ticked my memory on this beside the fact that my first article may have done the job in getting me fired?
Well, because the company in question just career-killed 70 of those 450 hostages; laying off as many workers yesterday.
And my local paper tried to bury the news on 4-B until I called them on it, on their facebook page. They grudgingly posted the item on their webpage, and I have shared it with you here: the entire story, that no one will ever tell you. Certainly not Florida Today.
That's okay, you can thank me by buying my book here.
Subtlety alert!(The web links are found in the different colored print)
Kids, this is how the "tax breaks" for the "job creators" shell game often works. One has to ask cui bono from these little deals? Because there's always a 'cui' and it never works out that that cui is a taxpayer. So why are public officials so damned lustful toward these deals? Gee, I wonder.
Interesting thing about DRS is they make targeting and acquisition for tanks, heads up displays and so on. You know, war stuff.
Here was an American company raised on the mother's milk of the American tax dollar. They develop this gear which our troops use.
Then in 2006, they sold the company all of it to Finmeccanica, an Italian weapon's manufacturer.
Great. There go your tax dollars and the know-how!
Not that we have a problem with the Italians -yet- but, who are they going to sell this gear to?
Talk about transfer of technology, there's every chance the gear, the know how, all of it will be trained right back on us as weaponry in the upcoming worldwide conflagration.
All of the people in this deal are the same sort of folks who would call you a Jesus-hating communist, an Obamalover, if you point any of this out.
There's no check no balance on whether those who qualify for corporate food stamps ever use their money to "create jobs" or even better society one iota. None.
Hell there are no assurances that your tax dollars aren't going to create weapons that might end up in the hands of someone who eventually kills you or one of your children.
Oh, but, Rick Scott wants to make sure you prove that you're out there making your cold calls every week to qualify for your measly $215 in unemployment. And as you slip into poverty, citizen, he wants to make sure that when you apply for food stamps you're not taking drugs.
You damned freeloader!
I had no choice but to write it. Some things you can't ignore; not and call yourself a reporter. There I am sitting at a city council meeting, and in comes this distraught woman. She's been canned from DRS/Finmeccanica (weapon's maker) at the same moment the company is taking massive tax breaks and incentives to move their major operations from Palm Bay into the neighboring city of Melbourne.
The move, costing Melbourne city taxpayers $650,000 in tax incentives and road improvements, was touted as a way to bring in 10 high paying jobs into Brevard County, and retain 450 more.
But the woman, Heike Alpert, said she was only one of 17 employees being laid off in the move, that very day! Which by 8th grade math is -7 jobs.
How perverse are these people, by the way? Fire 17 employees the same week you're getting tax cheese for "bringing in jobs".
Let's see that means for every job lost, $92,857 was paid. Oh but $85,000 was paid to improve roads for the company. And since those improvements remain behind, let's deduct that as we need to be totally fair to everyone included and, yep, $565,000/-7 that makes, -$80,714
Yes, the city paid a corporation $80,714 per full time position nixed, and collateral damaged ten more newly minted "I lost my job" zombies sent to the unemployment lines.
The city said "here's money, so you can fire some workers! Have at it!"
No? That's not what they said? Not fair? It wasn't quite like that? City fathers thought they were doing the right thing? Yeah?
Yeah because the company essentially said, if you don't give us this money, 450 employees, who we are now holding hostage, can't remain in Brevard County any more, bitches! And we'll fire all their asses, or we'll send them to New Jersey! Because we are just that damned crazy!'
No? That's not how it works? I'm being harsh again, am I?
Wake up. That's how these deals work more often than you'd care to know and no one ever calls them on it! What ticked my memory on this beside the fact that my first article may have done the job in getting me fired?
Well, because the company in question just career-killed 70 of those 450 hostages; laying off as many workers yesterday.
And my local paper tried to bury the news on 4-B until I called them on it, on their facebook page. They grudgingly posted the item on their webpage, and I have shared it with you here: the entire story, that no one will ever tell you. Certainly not Florida Today.
That's okay, you can thank me by buying my book here.
Subtlety alert!(The web links are found in the different colored print)
Kids, this is how the "tax breaks" for the "job creators" shell game often works. One has to ask cui bono from these little deals? Because there's always a 'cui' and it never works out that that cui is a taxpayer. So why are public officials so damned lustful toward these deals? Gee, I wonder.
Interesting thing about DRS is they make targeting and acquisition for tanks, heads up displays and so on. You know, war stuff.
Here was an American company raised on the mother's milk of the American tax dollar. They develop this gear which our troops use.
Then in 2006, they sold the company all of it to Finmeccanica, an Italian weapon's manufacturer.
Great. There go your tax dollars and the know-how!
Not that we have a problem with the Italians -yet- but, who are they going to sell this gear to?
Talk about transfer of technology, there's every chance the gear, the know how, all of it will be trained right back on us as weaponry in the upcoming worldwide conflagration.
All of the people in this deal are the same sort of folks who would call you a Jesus-hating communist, an Obamalover, if you point any of this out.
There's no check no balance on whether those who qualify for corporate food stamps ever use their money to "create jobs" or even better society one iota. None.
Hell there are no assurances that your tax dollars aren't going to create weapons that might end up in the hands of someone who eventually kills you or one of your children.
Oh, but, Rick Scott wants to make sure you prove that you're out there making your cold calls every week to qualify for your measly $215 in unemployment. And as you slip into poverty, citizen, he wants to make sure that when you apply for food stamps you're not taking drugs.
You damned freeloader!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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