Rick Scott Watch

Hillsborough, is Now Democracy's Achilles Heel

2012-03-01T05:36:00.000-08:00

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Hillsborough County's Interim County Attorney Don Odom has sent me the "Conduct of Election Report" for Nov. 2, 2010.

First point of interest. Hillsborough SOE says 12 memory cards failed to download their data. As we recall from yesterday, the voting machine company, Dominion said this was because election workers took the memory cards out of a machine (think of a CD burner on your desktop computer) before vote-counting software could finish downloading.

If the county SOE is correct, Dominion voting's gear is seriously flawed in that 38,000 votes were erased in a crucial election between Sink and Scott. If Dominion is correct, that means someone working for Hillsborough County's SOE made a serious error, not once, but 12 times in a row.

Additionally, the cards weren't tested? Apparently they were immediately shipped out to EARLY VOTING PLACES ONLY where DEMOCRATS are known to vote early.

There are no two ways about it. Think about it. One or the other. But which is it?

One thing is for certain: despite the uncertainty in either the machines, or the personnel, THERE HAS BEEN NO INVESTIGATION into the SOE by anyone. And the county commission of Hillsborough seems to have NO interest in getting to the bottom of this and answering that "which" question, despite spending millions on those machines.

Why? And how responsible is it for them to behave this way. Think about it, not one county commissioner in seven even cares about finding out whether the voting machines are seriously flawed OR whether there are actually people engaged in a criminal high-jack, racketeering of the Florida vote working in their SOE office.

Oh? Third choice? People operating the machines don't have the technical wizardry of a seventh grader. But they DO know how to send their mistakes to voters in the African American community, in the student community, in the bedroom community, of the 99 percenters.

Click for full view

Meanwhile, back on earth, the election of Rick Scott in Hillsborough went off without a complete canvassing board.

Why?

#Dominion Blames Hillsborough SOE for #RickScott election glitch

2012-02-29T09:35:00.002-08:00

After months of wrangling with Rick Scott Watch, Hillsborough County officials have released a written document concerning the alleged "glitch" that erased 38,000 votes in areas of minority electors, on Nov. 2, 2010.

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The document dated March 1, 2010, released by Hillsborough interim county attorney Odom Feb. 28. 2012 is from Dominion voting; the machine and software vendor, now controlling nearly 50 percent of all voting in Florida, and nationwide.

Dominion voting appears to call what had been deemed a "glitch" by the media, and the SOE, operator error on the part of county election staff and officials.

In terse technical language it indicates a "hot removal" of the memory cards during the phase when those memory cards were coded with vote-counting software before those cards were sent out to count the votes at early voting places. Only early voting was affected in the "glitch."

In more plain language, elections staff may have removed the cards from the machines before the process of downloading all the vote counting software was complete: essentially sending those cards to early voting places without the ability to capture the votes.

Nearly 50 percent of the ballots in the last three days of early voting "failed to download" onto the memory cards at early voting locations in the towns and communities of Temple Terrace, Town N' Country, West Tampa, New Tampa, South Shore and Jan Platt.

This resulted in a rescanning exercise put on display for the media at the Falkenburg Road Annex where more than a dozen poll workers ran 38,000 ballots "back through" scanning machines during the late evening hours of November 2, and the early morning hours Nov. 3, 2010.

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This, along with similar problems in Palm Beach delayed the concession speech of democratic gubernatorial contender Alex Sink until nearly 10 a.m., and acceptance speech of republican Governor-elect Rick Scott until nearly noon on Nov. 3, 2010.

The document, which reads almost as though taken from a product instruction manual comes after repeated verbal and written requests to the SOE, county commissioners, and finally Mr. Odom.

Several readers of this blog, fans on Facebook of Rick Scott Watch, Occupy Rick Scott, Rick Scott: Enemy of the State, and Occupy Rigged Elections were given a form email to send to Odom demanding answers, just before Mr. Odom sent out the document to my Gmail account DavidAnthonyKearns@Gmail.com

This marks the first time any documentation regarding this, perhaps the largest single computer/software election glitch in the state's history, has ever been published in any media.

Rick Scott Watch began asking questions relative to this "glitch" or "operator error" in July 2011 during research for our book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State

History of our quest, for those just joining us.

Hillsborough SOE Earl Lennard told us July 21, 2011 that a glitch did result in a rescanning during the primary in August, as far as he could recall. He offered no documentation when asked, but said a report was forthcoming from Dominion, apparently referring to this one dated four months prior to our interview with him.

He also said the rescanning process was completed by 10:30 p.m. Both are false statements which were not corrected by MIS director Tim Bobanic, nor chief of staff Craig Latimer who were present during the interview.

Rick Scott Watch approached Hillsborough County officials on three occasions making personal three minute appearances before the county commission demanding answers which weren't forthcoming.

1. Jan. 5. 2012 Our comments are filmed at 1:12

2. Jan. 19, 2012 Our comments are filmed at 0:31

3. Feb. 22, 2012 Our comments are filmed at 1:26 or thereabouts.

We also sent numerous emails to both commissioners and the county administrator regarding this "glitch" before receiving this response yesterday.

Not the First Time in Hillsborough

The events are similar to the logistically and mechanically "glitched" election of 2008 in Hillsborough, following which a box containing 440 voted but uncounted ballots were found in a warehouse and presented to newly elected supervisor of elections Phyllis Busansky.

Busansky had narrowly defeated controversial incumbent Buddy Johnson.

Johnson faced numerous allegations of mismanagement and his tenure later faced an FBI investigation.

It came to light during an audit and the FBI investigation, he had a convicted arsonist working for his office earning $20,000 for less than four months work.

Busansky was found dead on her hotel room floor in June during a conference for supervisors of elections, held in St. Augustine.

Governor Charlie Crist replaced her with republican former schools super Dr. Earl Lennard who is not seeking re-election in 2012.

Many questions remain.

Namely the obvious: For more than a year following the remarks of Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe "heads are going to roll over this" (in an article dated Nov. 4, 2010 of the Tampa Tribune,) commissioners have remained unified in their silent disinterest. Why?

Perhaps in an unrelated development, Commissioner Sharpe announced his decision to run for congress in August of 2011.

Why has there been no investigation or inquiry into this event despite the assertion, that has been known since March of 2011, that the machines were not to blame, but that the election staff themselves were for an error that an eleven year old operating the CD burner on his desktop computer would easily avoid?

Then these empty useless vote tabulating cards were sent by the SOE specifically to areas designated to capture early voting in minority communities. Why?

Why wasn't the error discovered sooner, so that an emergency "rescanning" was necessary in the middle of the night? Were the personal vehicles of the poll workers used to transport the ballots to Falkenburg Road as television video seems to suggest, or were county vehicles used?

Why that number, 38,000; which so conveniently, mathematically buoys the result of Scott v Sink over the rocky shoals of a recount?

Given all of this, why hasn't there been an investigation of the election of Rick Scott by some governing authority?

And where is the media on all of this? Why are they so silent? Can't they even ask these questions? Is it impermissible for them to do so now? Is this how bad it has gotten in this country?

More to come.

Test for Token #Democrats

2012-02-28T08:18:00.002-08:00

Can't remember what the party actually stands for?Are you someone who wears the T-shirt, but the elevator doesn't make it all the way to the top? Do you suffer from Prolonged Token Democrat Displacement Disorder (PTDDD)? Take the test and see?

1. Which of these statements is TOTALLY FALSE?

a. Obama is God
b. Obama is God AND he will save the world.
c. Walking on water is a sign of miraculous intervention of some sort and Obama had something to do with it.
d. Obama isn't necessarily divine.

2. If a candidate selects "one from every demographic" to work on his or her campaign and features them in the campaign material photos and websites. The candidate can best be described as?

a. A typical democratic contender
b. A limousine liberal
c. A progressive democrat
d. The best candidate for the elected position regardless of any other thing.

3. The candidate in the previous question hasn't chosen a platform yet; what he is for, or what he for or is against. His decision to create a swatch card of "diverse" faces BEFORE deciding what his stated goals and objectives are would be described as.

a. Asinine and a disgrace
b. Good timing
c. Potential ammunition for the right
d. Good strategy

4. The candidate in question two, knows his position on abortion but as a catholic can't bring himself to make that clear during the primary for fear of losing the female vote. He should..?

a. Stick to his guns.
b. Run and hide
c. Duck dodge and wave
d. Change his position immediately

5. Your friends are going to an event to lambaste a senator for his position on privatizing prisons. But, you find out that the senator is actually not going to be at the event. Your best move is to what?

a. Get drunk
b. Say nothing
c. Get drunk say nothing, go anyway
d. Get drunk, say nothing, go anyway, tell everyone the senator is in the building, you just saw him in the window.

6. You get to an event and discover you have the wrong T-shirt on. You should immediately do what?

a. Get drunk
b. Say nothing
c. Get drunk say nothing, go anyway
d. Get drunk, say nothing, go anyway, get the bumper stickers out of your car and sell them.

7. You are at an event screaming loudly with compatriots. But soon into the protest you discover a promotions booth for the very company you are protesting against offering snacks for free with a smile. In essence you find the entire event is a hoax designed to bring the media to the benefit of the company, with you as a foolish pawn. You should do what?

a. Get drunk
b. Say nothing
c. Get drunk say nothing, go anyway
d. Get drunk, say nothing, go anyway, tell everyone the senator is in the building, you just saw him in the window.

8. You discover the candidate you are working for is actually plant from the republican party, and he will likely change party affiliation from D to R, soon after taking office. What should you do? (Best answer)

a. Get drunk
b. Say nothing
c. Get drunk say nothing, clap and chant slogans
d. Get drunk, say nothing, clap, continue to sell bumper stickers, and make calls to garner support and donations.

9. You discover that there is a massive flaw in the voting machines in your county, or your state. Come 2012 there is a very real possibility the election will be stolen using this flaw. You should do what? (Best Answer)

a. Continue along as if nothing's the matter in fish-like, zombified willful ignorance
b. When someone tries to explain it to you, shake your head repeatedly saying "wha..? wha...? I don't get it? It must not be true otherwise I would have heard about it by now."
c. Go to another fund raiser. Drink. Squeal with laughter at the slightest joke to reduce the tension.
d. All of the above.

10. If someone shows you proof elections are being stolen in Florida you should do what?

a. Blacklist them, report them to the DNC. Call DWS and Alan Grayson to tell them there is a dissenter.
b. Get on Facebook and talk about how wonderful it was seeing Alan Grayson in person.
c. Put on fishnet stockings, and nothing else, walk around your house humming U2, yell at the pool guy for not doing his job. Kick the poodle for peeing on the carpet.
d. All of the above.

11. If you are going to an event to "protect women's rights" and you hear all elections have been cancelled with martial law now in place, your emotional reaction would be best described as which?

a. Horrified that martial law was installed.
b. Infuriated that not only women's rights, but ALL rights are being stomped out
c. Terrified that physical danger, genocide, concentration camps for dissenters may result
d. Angry that your event is now cancelled.

12. You are corralled into pens with your friends who are all part of your protest group. Proctors begin shooting GPS tags into the flesh of all detainees, using the very devices animal control uses to tag stray dogs. A week goes by without sleep. You find one day all of you are being slowly ushered to a room containing an industrial cheese grater. You suspect you will be directed to jump into it after emptying your pockets. As this horrific process unfolds you notice that gay detainees are being segregated to be thrown into a different cheese grater. Your move here is to...?

a. Try to escape immediately
b. Attempt to overpower your guards and stage a revolt!
c. Attempt to contact outside help
d. Begin a petition to demand equal treatment of all detainees.

13. The Stanley Milgram Experiment was which? (Best answer)

a. An experiment designed to show the evil of blindly following orders.
b. A creative use of buzzers
c. Largely thought to be immoral due to the psychological trauma of unknowing test subjects
d. Horribly filmed and acted by homophobic, misogynist, racist white men with no sense of color or style.

14. You discover a woman organizing your protest is actually Rick Santorum in drag. The very definition of "wolf in sheep's clothing!" What do you do? (BEST ANSWER)

a. Nothing. As long as he parties like the rest of us and says the right things, who cares.
b. Nothing. Don't want to go against the crowd
c. Convince myself despite all evidence that it isn't happening.
d. All of the above.

15. You discover Rachel Maddow has a reoccurring habit of avoiding actual news while focusing on the juicy tidbits spun off by the republican spin machine: non issues designed to inflame the masses while corralling them away from real news and real issues; more to the relief of corporate masters. Your best response would be to what?

a. Call the show and say something
b. Tell my friends in my protest group
c. Write an OpEd piece
d. Say nothing, do nothing; as others might notice I am not "of the body".

16. You're given a choice of attending a protest here, choose one.

a. The "Humans Against Genocide" Protest (limp press coverage)
b. The "Don't Put Us In the Goddamn Cheese Grater!" Protest (meek, surviving press coverage only)
c. The "Stop Rigging Our Elections" protest ( not a peep of press coverage, not one bug-tick, anywhere).
d. Protest slamming a city councilman for using the words 'All of Y'all' in an anti-union speech (Massive press coverage by NYT, CNN, Rachel Maddow, We Got Ed etc.).

17. Who are these remarks referring to? "My brother not need be idealized in death nor enlarged in what he was in life. He was a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it." (Your best answer)

a. Gandhi
b. RFK
c. MLK
d. Someone who likely wouldn't call for a first strike on Iran on behalf of Israel, and therefor not a real democrat.

18. If someone sends you a post of Facebook asking you to do something for the cause. Your move is usually what?

a. Like the post, then do as asked if I believe in the cause.
b. Like the post then do as asked if there is no money in it and I believe in the cause.
c. Like the post but then ask for more information to see if I am doing the right thing.
d. Like the post only, even if I am totally committed to the cause. Liking the post conveys the impression of participation even though I don't plan on participating. In fact, it has gotten so bad, I can barely summon the energy to "like" post I may agree with. I sort of just fool myself into believe even in my weak-assed silent agreement with the post I am "with the movement" and "doing something." And like, I know this is the wrong way to think, and all, but another part of me doesn't really give a shit. And I sort of laugh at everyone else who "actually participates" even if only to "like" the post they have no intention to comply with. And even though the entire country is going to corporate owned hell in a hand-basket, I'm sort of in a daze like a dead fish on a dock about it. I could give a fuck. I only pretend to be "for democracy" and it's amusing to me that I feel that way. Hey? Did you see Idol last night?

19. Rachel Maddow would have to tell you to do what, before you stopped following her.

a. Change your hair color.
b. Change your clothes on a downtown bus
c. Put your underwear on over your pants
d. None of these. You would instantly do whatever she asked.

20. If offered the chance to buy a book telling you the republican game-plan for Florida throughout the next four to eight years, you would do what?

a. Buy it by downloading the link here from Amazon
b. Claim to have bought it after reading only the first few pages.
c. Read the first few pages off the web since they are free
d. I wouldn't buy it. As a democrat I find it abhorrent to buy the work of a fellow democrat for reasons I can't explain. Aside from which being a democrat is a recreational outlet. It doesn't actually mean anything, silly.

Please keep coming back to the blog by clicking this link for answers to the quiz and your individualized test results throughout the day!

You Must Say Something Racist Before the Media Pays Attention to You

2012-02-23T10:24:00.004-08:00

And the grandmotherly gadlfly gets up before the Hillsborough County Commission and practically whispers this unfortunate line: "you're talking about ghettoizing."

Of course she said she was referring to a sort of racial gerrymandering. And she could have said this more mercifully. She also said the dreaded line "you want to be apart you should go back to where you came from."

Can we forgive a grandmotherly figure who knows not what she says?"

Nope. It's too late now. The train of demagoguery has left the station!

His selective journalistic conscience fully inflamed, the newspaper reporter begins scribbling.(Link here) He has found his low hanging fruit to ornament a potentially dry story about a new district, for Hispanics.

He and the news cameras have been waiting for this:, the Great White Whale of perceived "racism," to surface! "Harpoon her, great beast that she is!"

This dangerous creature: standing all of four feet seven inches, weighing in at seventy eight pounds with a voice of a small, angry finch. She is soooooo terrifying!

Even officialdom wastes no time in attacking. Never let a granny go unpunished.

County Commissioner Les Miller; "Let me apologize to the Hispanics that are here in this chamber watching, for the derogatory comments...that cuts deep. That hurts. It's painful. I apologize for the comments being made. (he repeated it!) I apologize for the comments being made!"

Clapping, and applause here. A Kumbaya moment serving to scold the gadfly. Bad, bad gadfly.

It helps to have someone willing to say something retrograde, something throwback, something impolitic, yes, something racist in her effort to get a decent debate going. Succulent red meat for the media to devour and pretend to be the defenders of ....meh, whatever.

The fact is, everything going on in any government body depends on the initial vote that put that public official into that chair. Because without the sanctity of the vote, you don't get a Less Miller in the first place. You don't get a black guy, or an Hispanic guy on the county commission. You don't even get a woman on the board, either. You don't get an openly gay man, or woman, on any county commission. You likely won't even get an agnostic, heaven forbid it!

Given the old system you certainly wouldn't get a tiny woman even daring to scold officials, as she does, so admirably, so valiantly, week in week out about their spending and so on.

So. If you want to get attention from the media say something which can be perceived as racist. Bring your granny.

Or go further! Come dressed as a chicken, perhaps, wear a funny shirt, and one of those crazy multicolored fake afros. Bring an accordian and a monkey. Make a stupid ruckus so the media can poke fun and ignore the heart of the issue. As they stumble blind in the darkness they create with their own closed eyes.

If you want to be ignored by both the media and public officials, what you must do is attack the heart of the issue. Raise a concern of the failure in our voting machines, that, if remedied, would solve the problems inherent with democracy. For this would erase a perceived need for special districts raised by a threatened minority feeling oppressed by the status quo.

Because failing the sanctity of "one person one vote" you don't get any diversity. Cry, whine into your Cuban coffee or latte all you want, baby. You don't even get the discussion of the creation of an "access district."

"Say theyuh Commissioner Beauregard? Have's you evuh hoid of something here, called an "access district?"

"No Commissionuh Thibedeaux, I don'ts beleebs I have, suh! Newfangled idea from yankeefolk no doubt, or perhaps thuh heeeeethuns!"

The term never, ever (and again now) ever! comes up. They don't even bother to consider something so outlandish.

Without the sanctity of the vote you get a sham, people. A governing board made up of ruling members of the local Mason Temple perhaps. Complete with all their coordinated red-herring issues and chicken feeding nonsense conflicts that the media, like hooked Snook, continue to fall for.

You get conspiring officials be they Masons, be they Poobahs, who since the 1850s have all been white hetero males of the same religious persuasions. Who for generations, have all been working for the same law firms, all the way back into dim-distant intolerant, enslaving past. Who have occupied all state legislature positions, as well.

You get nothing, citizen. You get bupkiss. If you or your family aren't part of the system that has been in place since before you were born, you my friend get no representation whatsoever.

You are told to go suck on a lollipop of untruth. You are lied to when you petition your sham government. They pat you on the head in the most patronizing manner, and send you on your way.

We have been approaching this commission, this county government, since July looking for one piece of paper to verify an erasure of 38,000 votes in District 3 (Miller) during the last election which the media - perhaps now bowing to some Beauregard sinister directive from the top - seems willing to forget along with the officials they are supposed to be watching for us. (We spoke again! That makes times three! We got no ink.)

So that the media and the officials themselves can erase history and continue to manipulate the system for their own means, bring back the Way Back Machine, and oppress the very people who democratic Commissioners Les Miller and Kevin Beckner pretend to protect.

Comes the surprising vote! The commission voted down 5-2, even the notion of handing the issue over to the voters of Hillsborough County by way of a referendum. Nope. No special and different districts for you, Hispanics.

Supremely quiet and officious commissioners Ken Hagan, Victor Christ, Alan Higgenbotham and Sandra Murman, (who seemed more concerned with events on the social calendar than any single issue) voted against it. And can you beleebs it? How in the world could they even consider not letting the citizens have a crack at this one!! Do you believe they voted that way?

Round and round like mice on a wheel, folks. That's you.

The Herring of (Perceived) Racism comes in at 1:10! We come in at 1:19. Commissioner Miller comes in at 1:26 or thereabouts.

Here's the meeting link.

Newsprint Media Plays silent Hausfrau to the Extermination of Democracy

2012-02-17T21:30:00.000-08:00

No rock left un-turned!

Reporters: they tell you they can go after any story. Will go after any story. Will follow the news (music rising here) where ever it leads!

I spoke to a very respected reporter last week, at a major newspaper, who shall remain nameless lest the Schutzstaffel root him out of his desk and toss him into the street.

Having worked for four newspapers covering city council, county commission and some state issues myself, I have an idea or two about how he does his job; what the issues are, what constitutes a news story and what doesn't.

I asked him about the newsworthiness of the Hillsborough Glitch. News has changed since I was in it. Used to be it was in the public record it was fair game: i.e. said at a meeting. Member of the public comes in, tops off, kooky as it may sound, get the reaction from the other side, and you can run it, provided it is balanced and the story has a basis in reality, such as an event the like of the Hillsborough Glitch.

The corporate ooze still hasn't erased the history of it. But it is trying. And the new reportage is the method. It's astounding the bar they've set for what constitutes reality, a workable news story.

Essentially, until I prove what I am saying is true - that's right, unless I root around inside the guts of the voting machines myself and prove they were hacked - it's not a news story. I don't have an opinion worth airing in newsprint. I have to dive inside the machines myself, mind you, and come out the other side with the buzzed out circuit (yep! here it is!) Or, I have to develop my own software worm, break into the systems myself, and have my little algorithm spit back the malware code to me (yep! This is it!) before the newspapers are permitted to even discuss it. To even mention the names of the companies involved all of these things must come to pass. By this test, nothing would ever be brought before a judge, ever; much less be written about.

It's like having to isolate the cancer cells in your mom's brain tumor before being permitted to take her to the doctor. Tell me in what other arena of life is a burden of absolute proof required before even a balanced story is written posing the question, whether a thing is good, or bad?

No no. You must have absolute proof this thing is bad, before we in the media will be permitted to run a story on it, even to take both sides and let the reader make up his own mind.

Time-Machine checked News only!

His comment to me was, that since he "can't go back in time" and see whether or not the vote was hacked in Hillsborough County, there's really no reason for his newspaper to even ask the question: this despite a glitch that mysteriously wiped out 38,000 votes. He can't even write a news story airing the fact I would like to get Hills county officials to give me some shred of evidence in writing that the event even happened. That there was even a problem on election night is easily called into question, and I can't get a written record of the event. Nope. Not news, by today's standards. Wowzers! That's some set of standards! Only news verified by TIME MACHINE makes the papers!!!

By the by; this seemingly ludicrous system of byzantine information-choke is how history is erased, mind you. And funny things happen when people start trying to erase history. As we recall? No? Not so much?

"Helke come away from that window!"

This is the very excuse logic the German hausfrau's used when they were excoriated for not knowing where the trains went, just down the road from the concentration camps. I don't say this lightly. This is precisely the mentality.

"You didn't have any idea where the trains were going?"

"No we didn't know. We had no idea and since there was no proof we weren't permitted to say anything!"

"Proof?"

"Ya"

"The trains went down this road full. Then they came back empty."

"Ya."

"And you didn't ask what went on down there?"

"We were told not to go, not to ask, and so we didn't."

This is the same attitude modern media has with regard to a problem that has left our democracy as vulnerable as Swiss cheese. Machine hacked elections, hacked democracy, election rigging courtesy of Diebold, Premiere or Dominion.

All seems so Orwellian

These reporters today can't even ask the questions, unless their story is all wrapped up with a nice little bow of proof! So, what they really want is a press release by some "Ministry of Authority", that there had been a problem, but now it is solved for the Good of the Body Public.

Well that logic rates a hearty "Double-plus-good!" on the tyranny meter!

For scary practical purposes my conversation with the reporter sounded something eerily similar to this:

Me: "But it happened!"

Him: "Did it?"

Me: "You're paper wrote about it!"

Him: "Did we? I can't say as I recall..." (crickets)

Me: "Well, that's what I am asking you to do, to search your archive and look up your old stories on this issue. Surely you can look at your archived stories, where the event was discussed, can't you?"

Him: "I don't know, can I?" (crickets)

"No he's not, he's just resting!"

Me: "I have a copy here of one of the stories taken off the web. It has your paper's name on it. It mentions that 38,000 ballots were erased and they had to be re-scanned in the middle of the night."

Him: "But what proof do you have?"

Me: "That's right! That's what I am asking you to look into! Look into that!"

Him: "I can ask a question or two, but not much else."

Me: "Why?"

Him: "Well, there's no proof is there. Not much use to us without proof."

If this were NASCAR they would run that film to find out what happened, if it took a million years. If this were footage of a Kardashian's naughty parts in a video clip from Youtube they would run it backwards and forwards all day long all over CNN - with the smudge of discretion of course - just to make sure we had confirmed that indeed, she showed her woo-hoo! during her trip downtown wherein she wasn't wearing under garments!

But since we are talking about the rigging of our entire election system using vulnerable software that's been around since the late 1980s; since we're talking about large corporations essentially perpetrating a silent coup on us all, marshaling us all off to WW III now or God knows what they have in mind; no, we can't discuss it.

We won't even do you the honor of running a news story mentioning your concerns.

Because you, common citizen, have no voice anymore. Not anymore.

Furthermore what The Big Machine really needs from you now, is to STFU and participateLITE in our Ministerial Warm Body Exercise (MWBE) called "voting."

After you show up in the required demographics, we'll juke the numbers the way we like.

We'll take it from there.

Letter to Hillsborough's County Attorney

2012-02-15T11:40:00.001-08:00

I have been inquiring since July for some written report concerning the alleged error of the Dominion voting machines that reportedly erased 38,000 ballots on election night Nov. 2, 2010.

I have been given no information. I have spoken before the Hillsborough County Commission twice and am prepared to do so again at any time regarding this issue. I have inquired directly to your SOE Earl Lennard and was told false statements in the presence of Mr. Bobanic and Mr. Latimer neither of whom corrected him. They offered no documentation.

I was assured by commissioner Mark Sharpe there was a preliminary report regarding the alleged error in the machines that night. But once again nothing has been forthcoming. I am soliciting radio and television time to speak on this matter as I consider it alarming that the county apparently has no information on a horrendous glitch, amplifying my suspicions that the election was rigged in Hillsborough County. I have no trouble standing up in whatever venue be it local radio or national television to lay the evidence out as it is. Please dissuade me of the notion that the entirety of the county government is suspect by directing whomever it may be, to send me written documentation as to the exact cause as best known, of the Hillsborough Glitch of 2010.

Thank you

My Email to DELUSIONAL #AlanGrayson

2012-02-14T15:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Alan,

It must be a hundred times I am saying this: with all due respect, you're delusional. Here's yet another email from your crew asking me for money.

Oops I deleted another email that dude sent us!

I've sent this message, in nicer words, to your interns over and over. And being kids and tweenies and, whoever you've hired, who are all so terribly excited to be a part of history!, or whatever you have them juiced up on, they dared not give my reply emails to you. So now I publish. And I am honest with you.

Alan, listen. I want you to really look in the mirror and have an honest heart to heart with yourself. Truth-time: There is no way in hell the "big machine" is ever going to let you back into congress.

Reason? Because you are honest. Because you cared. Because you demonstrated the courage befitting your position as an elected member of congress. Specifically, when you got up on the floor of the House of Representatives and you said "the republican healthcare plan is, don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly."

They won't suffer that any more. They won't let you in.

"Oh, yeah?," you say, "It's the voters who will decide anyway, so what are you worried about?"

No. No. Not right. Not right. Here are some names. Gore versus Bush, Jennings versus Buchanan, Sink versus Scott. What does this roll call have in common? Hacked voting machines.

For months now since publishing my book on Kindle Rick Scott: Enemy of the State I have been trying to get people to realize the election of Rick Scott was a fraudulent one, carried out, most likely, through the Hillsborough SOE. And it was handled so brazenly that now, neither they, nor the county commission will share one published report, one written report, as to how 38,000 early voted ballots were erased in the middle of the night.

Remember? Remember how the governor couldn't accept until the next day? Remember how Sink couldn't concede until then either? Remember? No?

I've been over to Hillsborough three times. Twice to speak before the commission to ask them for any documentation, as apparently the SOE is so filled up with lies, they can't set a hand to it, and I still have nothing. I have been asking them since July, Alan. Since before you decided to run again. One shred of documentation so I can show this to other counties and tell them to get rid of the same voting machines. They won't do it. Because in all likelihood, there was nothing wrong with the machines, at all. And if that's the case, there should be a federal investigation into the election of Rick Scott.

I trust you notice our secretary of state resigned again? Yeah, his decision was made, Jan. 5, reportedly. Oh, on Jan. 5 I got up before the commission and told them "these machines are used to steal elections over and over again." I told them I had filed a complaint with Florida's AG and she sidestepped forward it to the Department of State. And convenient to the process of resigning, you are forgiven all sins of omission in the last month. Nothing to be alarmed about.

You know, I saw you speak at OWS in Orlando. Great speech. "It's not your fault, it's theirs (points to the Chamber building) awesome. Also pointless. You were the one pol who had no trouble getting to the mic right away. You think the big machine is going to let you back into congress when they now control the vote in the state of Florida with impunity?

Don't make me laugh. You came over to my neck of the woods. You were charging $15 a pop for folks to come watch. And I would have: honestly. I would have paid the Space Coast Progressive Alliance that money for you, sure. If, if, that money would be going for some good.

But it's not. It's not Alan. It just isn't. As long as the democratic party continues to feign interest in democracy itself with delusional campaigns such as yours I am not a "buy in."

We be jamming ballots back through the scammers, er scanners!

Sure, some token democrats will get new seats in the Florida State House. We have a great candidate for that here; practically a shoe-in. I mean, give the Big Machine credit for a little subtlety.

But not you. No more "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" stories for you, my friend. No more. Because you scare them. If they are so brazen as to install a governor, tell me why in hell they would ever, ever, ever let you near that place again?

Not as long as you, Alex Sink and other "leaders" of our party display an alarming disinterest in what happened, what really happened, in Hillsborough County the night Rick Scott was elected. As long as you're going to sit there and rely on the same hackable machines that erased 38,000 votes in the African American community of Temple Terrace, plug your ears, shut your eyes, and put your hands over your mouth?

You ain't got a prayer. And it's damned shame.

Your pal,

Dave

P.S. Really looking forward to that next mass email. Until then...

Are you Protesters or Livestock?

2012-02-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

They are laughing at you, because there's a fine line. They think you're livestock. Are they wrong?

You are standing outside the government building with your group, everyone so tame. Inside they smirk, ridicule and laugh. Because while you are satisfying yourself you are "participating" they are still working to enslave you. And they are getting better at it, every day.

In my town, they tell us where to protest. They call it the Peace Corner. The intersection of 192 and Hollywood: out near the Melbourne Square Mall.

And we comply. When we really should be out in front of GE who pays nothing in taxes, or the doors of the companies which produce predator drones, and smart bombs. The ones the vast corporate machine wants to turn into defacto religious organizations by way of removing all taxes! All taxes! All....taxes! Better we should worship at their door, prostrate in robes.

But no. Same old protest. Same old crowd. Same old bar afterwards. Same old meetings. Same old talk.

We can't do that now. We can't just give ourselves a pat on the back and an 'completion of participation' award. We can't be satisfied to just pay our $15 and get a picture with Alan Grayson. (BTW he's nuts if he thinks they will let him back into congress when they control the voting machines. Nuts!)

I'm guilty. I raise my hand. I get up at county commissions and I am so damned nice. I abide by their rules. And they sit there with their fish faces and go to sleep.

This has to get more creative. We have to attack the heart of these issues.

Don't take this wrong. There is nothing in the world like this picture here. This picture is worth 10,000 words. Why? See the sign in back? Here Rick was going for his roll out of Ricky 2.0. Here he was rolling out his new, all-inclusive image for mass consumption.

And there are the Pink Slip Rick folks to rain on his parade. Truly a major moment in American politics. You all are making history. Fact.

But you have to make it faster. Your bludgeon has to become a razor. And you can't let major parties, unions, or people just in it for a buck side-track you. Even me. Yes, I am selling a book. Every bit as worthwhile as a bumper sticker if not more so.

The mission is to get rid of this clown. Get him out of the mansion before he and his junta of fake-Christian corporate goons destroy this state. Before they become so brazen at stealing elections, they steal 2012. And if they can get away with it, they will.

Think of our former outrage at issues which now have simply vanished. And we let it happen.

The email issue. His administration deleted perhaps thousands of individual email records. Each deletion is a direct violation of our laws. Allegedly, it was turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Allegedly, the FLDE, though directed by an executive-appointed cabinet member, was going to be impartial. Was going to get to the bottom of all this immediately. Well? Where is that? Are we such livestock we can't even remember what we were so angry about just a few short months ago?

Or do you fantasize the investigation was actually, covertly turned over to the FBI? Good luck with that. Have you filed even a single complaint? Have you filed your own complaint to the Florida Commission of Ethics on this issue? Is that not the first order of business before you buy the T-shirt and the bumper sticker?

Consider this; if it can be proved he deliberately destroyed thousands of public records, he can be removed from office. Now, wouldn't that feel better than standing there outside the mall with your T-shirt on? Actually seeing to the removal of this guy? Isn't that something we should be focusing on? No? Not so much?

I never hear about this issue any more. Hush children. Hush.

What about this issue? What about 38,000 early voted ballots erased on election night in Hillsborough: a county with a history of weird - likely hacked, stolen, rigged elections? Why is that ignored by you, by the media?

Are you such livestock you cannot connect the dots? Emails missing. Emails pertaining to the hiring of one Kurt Browning, our former secretary of state as of this Friday, among those. Browning quits as soon as someone, namely me, begins asking serious questions about the election rigged in Hillsborough. And Hillsborough won't produce one shred of documentation about what happened on election night. Can't you connect the dots?

I am the only one, me, my stupid ass, appearing before the Hillsborough County Commission demanding something in writing to give us an explanation about this botched election. Me. And my book.

I know the media knows about this issue. I know they get my emails. I emailed Adam Smith, editor at Tampa Bay Times about this issue: this photo, I'd like to use on the cover of my book!

The response was instantaneous. But when I sent a follow up a few days later, and then again, asking about the irregularities in the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections and the (possibly) rigged election of 2010, and the fact there has been no report on the glitch, I get dead silence in return. Despite the fact, most of the information I gathered about this issue, came from his reporters! From his paper, when it was called The St. Pete Times!

What is that?

The democratic party, so too. The unions as well. It can be argued that Rick Scott is the best thing to happen for the health of both organizations in a long, long while. Both groups have millions at their disposal. They can't find the money to hire some lawyers to look into these issues that very well could remove the governor?

Why? Because actually getting rid of a governor who doesn't deserve to be there, would be like killing the golden goose?

You think about that the next time someone hands you a T-shirt, a bumper sticker, a sign with words on it you haven't read yet, tells you where to stand, what to say, and curiously, when to leave.

It's a fair point. You have to stop thinking like livestock and start thinking, outside the box. Now more than ever.

And if you don't buy the definitive book on this governor, what he is doing to this state, then perhaps you're not a protester, your just out there, having a good time unconcerned about what's really going on here.

#RickScott Watch interviewed on the Amy Tidd Show

2012-02-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

The wonderful Amy Tidd interviewed us, along with State Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) and Susan Ibensen of Planned Parenthood on the Amy Tidd Show

Scary things were talked about. But perhaps none more scary than Gulag Inc. the scenario referred to in Rick Scott Enemy of the State where a profit motive meets incarceration. On Tuesday the legislature is having this one rammed through by "Prison Mike", Senate President Mike Haridopolos.

Also discussed were charter schools and the flap concerning churches finding it hard to stomach the moral outrage of behaving as any employer would and offer the whole scope of insurance coverage to female employees that other institutions offer, including contraception. Of course, the president caved partially on this issue. No matter the right is still angry, and is insisting on issuing a fatwa about it.

Here's the podcast link.

.

Hillsborough Doesn't Care if Elections Are Rigged?

2012-02-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Hillsborough County Commissioners bravely addressing election issues

Hillsborough County Commissioners called Earl Lennard, supervisor of elections to the County Commission meeting yesterday and blatantly refused to ask him questions I have driven across the state to ask three times.

Namely what precisely caused the seismic election glitch of 2010?

Most of the talking was done by a legal representative from the county. Lennard was there specifically to talk about the new election laws.

And yet, not one of the county commissioners thought to ask him for his office's official report on the Glitch that erased 38,000 votes the night Rick Scott was elected.

Earl Lennard SOE

I have asked the county to give me, or point me the way to, any shred of documentation regarding the events of Nov. 2, 2010. There is no report, apparently. Nothing on the Supervisor's website. And I need to hold a report on this glitch, as I march all over Florida in a fugue of Messianic-complex narcissism, trying to convince county commissions to remove Dominion Voting systems from their offices of supervisor of elections.

My fugue requires documentation, yes. Otherwise they just laugh at you. Of course they can only snicker at you quietly if you have bona fide evidence that what you say is true and accurate and they should do something about whatever your issue is. But they still snicker, and make jokes about your "concern".

What the commissioners did yesterday was personally insulting to me. Yes. Hear me sniffle at my desk. See the tears as they cascade down my face. But their actions (inactions) were also telling. Boiled down, there is only one logical conclusion. And it ain't pretty.

Comm.Mark Sharpe District 7

They simply don't care whether or not their supervisor of elections, or someone inside his office, or whether other parties through unknown means, are rigging elections through Hillsborough County's SOE. They just don't care. If it is happening, they don't want to know. And they don't want to talk about it.

Interesting to note that one commissioner Mark Sharpe, is running for congress. Oh yes! Please, feel free to link to his campaign Facebook page and ask him about his disinterest in this issue.

Sharpe actually was outspoken in his disappointment with the SOE office after the election of Rick Scott, because of the Hillsborough Glitch. The glitch erased 50 percent of the votes in the last three days of early voting, necessitating the emergency rescanning of those votes. "Glitch" is a word that doesn't exist in computer science. The term "Ballot rescanning" doesn't exist in Florida law.

He was quoted in the Tampa Tribune saying "heads are going to roll over this" immediately following the election. Because of all that money spent on Dominion voting machines (!) and not necessarily the tainting of the election result. No matter, the sentiment was a valid one.

Long about July, however, he decided to run for congress. He's facing incumbent democrat Rep. Kathy Castor in a seat that has been held by democrats for some time. Perhaps because of this, and not wanting to anger the supervisor of elections he went schtum on the entire issue.

Here's my hell in all this. Let's review the entire sad story of my pitiful efforts to get Hillsborough to officially, on paper, fess-up to what happened on election night 2010?

Timeline and videos:

1. I approached Hills SOE for information July 21, and was told blatant falsehoods. Here's the link to my account taken day-of.

2. I sent a complaint in to the Florida Attorney General's office that it was my firm belief the election was rigged. This was forward by her staff to Sec. of State Kurt Browning.

3. I sent an email to Mark Sharpe asking if heads indeed did roll, and what happened? Was there an explanation for the glitch? I got nothing back.

Okay so, nothing from the A.G. Nothing from the Department of State. Lies from the Hills SOE, nothing back from one of their commissioners who at least seemed interested in the issue. What do I do?

4. Appearing here before the county commission Jan 5. I asked them to help me in my quest. (We come in at 1:12:11) Commissioner Mark Sharpe addressed my concerns stating "there has been an initial response that has been forwarded." But of course there was nothing sent, or published.

5. St. Petersblog reports Jan. 9, 2012. Monday, that Sec. of State Kurt Browning will resign. They report the decision was made on Jan. 5. The very day I appeared and harangued the Hillsborough County Commission.
The secretary of state's office immediately vehemently denied the secretary was stepping down. Here. But then, oopsie, next day Jan. 11, the Governor himself confirmed that this was precisely what was happening.

Meantime I never received anything in the way of a 'forthcoming" initial report about the Hillsborough Glitch. Remember. This is the crux of the entire issue. I am looking for a single piece of paper with words on it confirming there was a machine foul up on election night, and they won't do this.

So I went back to Hillsborough County.

6. I appeared again, Jan. 19. I come in at 0:31:10 I feel I put a decent lick on them. Wake up! "When elections are stolen in Florida people die!" I mean, certainly they heard that, right? Oh yes, I know they heard that because the Commission Chairman Ken Hagan said "appreciate you comments, sir." So, that means he heard them, right?

7. No. Apparently not. No response forthcoming. So Tuesday I sent a follow up email, which was bounced by the commission administrator's office. Essentially their response was "seek ye the office of SOE" which I had done in July.

8. So, fed up, I sent back this email of mild lambaste reminding them of all I had been through (I mean..!) She sent me a response stating she was immediately directing this email to Ken Hagan, chairman of the board. I sent back "outstanding". I mean, obviously now they are going to get to the bottom of this, they are going to ask the questions I have been asking, right? I mean, come on, they know I mean business and I have a serious concern, right?

9. Next bloody day, February 8, the commission brings in all players in the SOE and an attorney before the board. I mean this is next day! (Look I can't drive over to every single meeting of the Hillsborough County Commission. I couldn't be there! I wish I had! But, essentially being an out of work underwear blogger dependent in a one salary household, it was my duty to drive the kids to and fro to all their whatnots and schools.)

Mr. Lennard comes in here at 1:53:4

Comm. Les Miller District 3

Commissioner Les Miller who represents the very district (3) and the African American community in which the early voted ballots were "glitched," says he had called Lennard there to discuss changes in the voting laws which affect thousands of voters. At the beginning of the meeting, Miller had discussed the NAACP and Black History Month, February.

"There's been as you all know much concern about the election law." He said, and asked for the "good, the bad, the ugly," if there is any.

Lennard and his team then discussed everything but the machines that will count the votes. He certainly didn't discuss the last general election. He glazed over changes to the voting laws. Bobanic and Latimer - heir apparent for Lennard's position after he steps down at the end of the 2012 election, were there and said nothing.

No one commissioner; certainly not Mark "heads should roll" Sharpe, certainly not Ken "appreciate your concerns" Hagan nor even Les "African American community I represent you" Miller dared mention the glitch that ate 38,000 votes.

But they aren't alone. Alex "wanted to be governor" Sink has never addressed this issue either. And as a resident of Hillsborough County who lives in Thonotosassa, you would think she would be very concerned about the glitch and in need of answers.

Not so much.

Why?

No one will say.

Where is the media in all of this?

No one knows.

Contact the Hillsborough County Commissioners through their website by CLICKING HERE. Strongly urge them to get rid of Dominion voting machines, and put pressure on the supervisor of elections to produce a report on the election fiasco of 2010. Something in writing.

Contact the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections BY CLICKING HERE, demand that they complete, release, publicize a written report - be it a paragraph, be it a book - on the Glitch that erased 38,000 votes on election night 2010.

Or don't. Yeah, too much trouble I know. Continue believing you are participating in democracy by going to the same parties you've been going to with your other buddies in whatever political party you belong to. Get your picture taken with Barack, or DWS, or Alan Grayson again, and delude yourself that all is well.

..that your vote is being counted.

Follow up Letter to Hillsborough County Commissioners

2012-02-07T04:25:00.000-08:00

This letter was sent yesterday in response to their note that day, directing me to contact the Supervisor of Elections regarding the voting glitch. I had originally contacted the SOE back in July and got no answer then. I am being directed back to the SOE despite three trips to the county in person searching for an official explanation in writing concerning the Hillsborough Glitch.

Dear Hillsborough County Commissioners.

Frankly, I can't believe what you're telling me here: your
commission's level of intellectual curiosity with regard to a massive
voting glitch that erased 38,000 early voted ballots, following a
nearly identical glitch in 2008, following all that office has been
through, following the mysterious death of your previous SOE,
following an FBI investigation; following the outlay of millions to
Dominion by county taxpayers, extends so far as to direct me to make
inquiries myself?

Look, I have been told false and misleading statements by the current
SOE Earl Lennard when I made inquiries. And his officers didn't
correct him regarding these false misleading statements in a meeting
with them this past summer. I don't feel approaching them again,
personally, is going to produce anything in the way of information. I
have asked the commissioners to make inquiries so that everyone is on
the "same page" as to what Hillsborough's official story is on this
"glitch".

Here am I to read that there is no official story and you don't care?
Is this it?

I was assured by commissioner Mark Sharpe something in writing would
be sent to my email regarding the Hillsborough Glitch at the Jan. 5
regular meeting. Nothing has come to my email.

Again I do not relish coming all the way across the state to ask the
same questions over and over, any more than the commissioners enjoy
hearing me.

Kindly send me the official story regarding the glitch, whatever that
may be, in an email and I can move on to other county commissions.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation with a citizen's request.

David A. Kearns
author Rick Scott: Enemy of the State

Scumbag Distress Bill

2012-02-06T06:53:00.000-08:00

(hello! Obvious parody and satire!)

Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos issued a statement this morning that he is co-sponsoring a bill to help needy corporate scumbags take over the state.

Called the "Scumbag Distress Iniative" SB 666 would have taxpayers contributing to an account directly. This fund then would enable electronic withdrawls from needy corporate scum who happen to be contributors to "worthy" republican state legislators such as Dean Cannon, Don Gaetz and others who are "down with the program" of harming citizens toward the enrichment of the few.

The projects would be trumped-up, made up, puppies and unicorns to the public lies, which enrich those scumbags who participate. New prisons, new waterparks inside nature preserves, new drug testing companies, and so on. Whatever you got.

Meeting only token resistance from other senators this morning, it seems as though the Scumbag Distress Initiative may pass before moving on to the state house.

"We need to help worthy corporate scumbags. So they can provide the (using air quotes here) cost savings to us, the taxpayers, as well as (air quotes again, and the smile) jobs desperately needed in these tough economic times," said Senator Haridopolos.....

(What the truth would look like in a news story)

Read more truth here!

Highway to Hell With #Mitt and #Newt

2012-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Romney steals Newt's Racist Dog whistle

2012-01-31T21:18:00.000-08:00

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.

I DON'T HATE RICK SCOTT...

2012-01-30T07:27:00.000-08:00

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.

GOP Entrance Exam Answer Key

2012-01-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

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.

Take the GOP Entrance Exam

2012-01-24T07:21:00.000-08:00

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".

Letter to Hillsborough Officials Today

2012-01-20T08:11:00.001-08:00

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

2012-01-20T07:25:00.000-08:00

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

Rick Scott's "Nuclear Option"

2012-01-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

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

Billboards on School Buses

2012-01-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

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!

Our Strange Lieutenant Governor

2012-01-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Did Browning Admit the fix is on for 2012?

2012-01-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

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.

Browning Resigns

2012-01-11T16:11:00.001-08:00

Browning Bails Out Amid Controversy and Did we help?

2012-01-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

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.

Flush-a-palooza against Dominion Voting Systems

2012-01-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

Who's with me? Because I can't do this all by myself. Dominion voting, who handed us Rick Scott, needs to be flushed. They need to go bye bye. Now.

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.

Gaetz floats his trial turd on missing emails.

2012-01-09T08:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Our comments to the Hillsborough County Commission 1/5/2012

2012-01-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

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

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

Here we are on LeftNeck Chick/Nicole Sandler

2011-12-29T09:05:00.001-08:00

Bush's End-Run? Well, Florida's a lock so why not?

2011-12-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

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.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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.

Gigantic RAT in this video

2011-12-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

I don't know what a "Gannett" is. Help me.

2011-12-12T08:21:00.000-08:00

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.

"Closet" Democrats Everywhere

2011-11-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

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.

Tax Breaks for Big Corp at Work

2011-11-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

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!

How Screwed are our elections? Watch.

2011-11-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

#RickScott should work for 1 day, as an unemployed person

2011-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

He should get up at 7 a.m. to the pangs of hunger. Or maybe to the thumping of the landlord's fist on the door to his run-down apartment, or maybe the sounds of coughing at the shelter, or the maddening itch of a thousand mosquitoes in the woods.

(Let's not go that far. Say he still has his apartment that his wife banished him to for "losing" his job.)

He should walk over to the moldering couch with his breakfast, a cup of coffee from last night in his hand, turn on television if he still has one, and enjoy the local news - featuring Rick Scott pretending to work a job somewhere. A job the common unemployed man would scream, just scream bloody murder to get.

Let him repair to the shower. No soap? No problem, there's still some Dawn under the sink. Toothpaste? Baking soda. Necessity being the mother of invention.

Maybe Rick Scott could then check his messages, if he still has a cell phone. He can listen to his (former?) wife crying, howling for him to pay his child support; to come up with a solution to a cornucopia of problems facing the new nuclear family (mom and kids, dad parts unknown) the corporatocracy is creating throughout the American landscape.

Perhaps she waits for the sick child in need of antibiotics, outside the doctor's office without a stitch of insurance to pay for the visit, or the medication that will be prescribed. Maybe the lights have been turned off at home; she's in a panic at a bus station the children in tow having brought them to work with her, to the consternation of her employer. Maybe the sheriff's department is at the door on eviction day. Where will she go? No one has answers. He makes no sounds down the line. She hangs up after screaming at him for his uselessness.

Next, if he has the money for a bus, he can with thumping headache, make for his first destination a Solantic Walk In Care Center, there to take a drug test in order to continue to qualify for food stamps which will be sent back home.

Where next?

McDonald's of course, with a stack of resumes in hand, highlighting his skills; detailing his last job as a sales manager at a major food chain; or perhaps he was a junior insurance claims adjuster, or perhaps he was a nurse at the local public hospital. Maybe he was an ESOL teacher, or a social studies instructor and driver's ed teacher, all of course, none of these skills will translate to the position of fry cook at the local fast food schlep-stand and everyone in the equation knows it; especially the hiring manager.

And of course there is that college degree and that master's in education working against him now. He's "overqualified" not to mention too old. And he's been out of work for two years. So it's down to the strip mall, door to door. No. No one wants him at Belk Lindsey. No one wants him at Kohls. No one wants him at Marshall's. No one wants him. No one.

What's next?

With resources dwindling, let Rick Scott then hitch back to his apartment feeling lightheaded and thoroughly demoralized. There, just in time to take nutrition in the last dregs of a liter bottle of Diet Coke, and a slice of cheese on some moldy bread.

So with one last comfort to him, let him turn on the television news again, to see a segment about his alternate universe self brag about tax breaks to so and so corporation, to see his alternate self pump a fist to mythical projected "jobs" as if they exist now; right goddamn now! When everyone knows the factory in question is yet to be created; the roads, the pipes, the other services the dregs of his own property taxes are paying for, won't be in place for more than a solid year.

By which time so and so corp. could just as easily bring talent in from out of state, or out of the country. Or they could claim their plans changed; exigencies of a down market course. You all understand the needs of "job creator" Corporation So and So come first these days in the new Florida. What are you some sort of socialist? Are you a commie? And who's to stop them from not hiring a single soul?

Certainly not Rick Scott in the governor's mansion, who by which time will have long ago filed those "new jobs" in the win column, and of course used them as a basis for more tax cuts, for more corporations, for more "job creation".

Let Rick Scott then lay his head on that dusty pillow with the knowledge that tomorrow, he will have to get up and do it again. And on that next day he knows he will hear the denigrating and snide remarks on every television he passes by - the cynical, blistering chides from a thousand experts from the GOP and the Tea Party - urging him to just get off his ass, and get a job.

And the biggest voice in that chorus of oblivious "let them eat cake" hatred, will be that of Rick Scott.

Miami New Times (Remote) Interview

2011-11-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

Miami New Times Writer David Minsky asked me about my book, what's in it, why I was suspicious of the 38,000 ballots in Hillsborough.

Below are my responses to him from his ten questions (one's a repeat) which you can guess by reading them.

New Times went curiously silent when I detailed what I thought happened in Hillsborough. Minsky twice said the interview would run, but when presented with additional evidence regarding the flaws in our voting systems throughout the state (and what I have presented here is only the tip of the iceberg) the New Times went mum.

This happens a lot with big media. Telling people their vote may not be totally secure is something akin to asking Neo to take the 'red pill'.

It could be the larger story of the vulnerabilities in Florida's elections systems has either scared them from mentioning me. Or it may be something they wish to pursue themselves without involving me.

So be it. It's enough for me to know and you to know that if they pursue this story, I brought it to them after they approached me about my new book. In any event I spent time on my responses to them, and so I don't want that time to be wasted. I offer them here.

Dear Mr. Minsky;
Thanks so much for your interest.

1. Summary: We take the reader through his election and the first legislative year in office. We start with his budget statement at The Villages, flash back to our brief introduction to him on Rick Sanchez’s show (CNN), as head of Conservatives for Patients Rights. And from there we move forward until the end of October this year. All the while we dissect his major policies including healthcare, drug testing, education. We also discuss how he is working in lock step with the republican supermajority (Super pejorative). During this time we learn some distressing things about our elections in Florida and the 38,000 rescanned ballots in the middle of the night in Hillsborough County which, there is a very strong argument, carried the day for him to gain his office in the first place.

2. I decided to write a blog first. If there was a key event I’d say it came back in February he floated a trial balloon ( or trial turd, if you will) that he wanted to close as many as 52 “underperforming” state parks. That set me in motion. I had seen this sort of thing before in Brevard County. That just burned me up because I know it’s a scam. By March he had totally revealed himself as harmful to the state with his attacks on education. I am a former teacher, as well as a former journalist. I know how tough it is to teach. I know what these heroes go through day in day out. Aside from which I cannot enumerate all of the good things Brevard County public school teachers and administrators have done for my kids. I would take a bullet for some of them. I mean that. His attacks on teachers and public schools are inexcusable.

3. I have been published before going the traditional route. My book Where Hell Freezes Over can still be seen on Amazon. (Please excuse the long link here)
I knew how long the traditional route can take. I didn’t spend much, if any time, trying to get the major publishers interested. I thought this book must come out before the next legislative session so that the people of my state know the entire picture of what is happening to them. The traditional publishing route simply isn’t designed to be that reactive.

4. Rick Scott has created a cottage industry in the form of antipathy toward himself. There are many worthy groups out there, namely Pink-Slip Rick, Awake the State, Progress Florida, and the list goes on and on. There is a vast market that he has created. And of course, he did tell us “let’s get to work.” So I got to work, on him.
I knew getting it out prior to Christmas was key relative to the build up before the next session in the legislature. There is also a heavy political season brewing as you know. The Tampa Republican Nomination Convention is in August. You see Rick Scott rolling out “Ricky 2.0” his new, toned-down, kinder, gentler version of himself. He’s even trotting out the Bob Graham workaday routine. (Vomit.) I am not going to let the leopard change his spots and continue to run a con on the State of Florida. He is a shill for a very dangerous, fascist agenda. All you have to do is lay out the record, which I have done, spicing it with some humor and righteous rage, and you see that. A few days ago, it dawned on me the perfect time was approaching in the anniversary of his election.

5. The title morphed from Rick Scott for Dummies to Running it Like an Asshole, to Rick Scott: Hatchet Man, to Rick Scott: Criminal Intent, to Rick Scott: Enemy of the State.
You see they grew more serious. This, because his attacks on us grew worse. The latter title fit best because what he is doing is quite literally attacking Florida. He is an attacker, a hostile occupier, an enemy. As Alex Sink said during the campaign, he’s not a “businessman” he’s not a rugged individualist “boot-strapper” he’s a corporate raider. That type of person masks a lack of vision with the drama and furious He sells off assets in order that the stock holders receive a temporary bump in their share price. Then he bails. He’s on to the next thing. He loses interest. He often leaves the place significantly worse off than when he arrived. He uses a spread sheet to justify himself. The numbers thereon are often gibberish, lies, meaningless.
But, with Rick Scott it goes even further than that: he’s running this game on us ,too. He’s trying to turn Florida into a demonstration farm for the new corporatized, fascist America. We’re his guinea pigs. Each one of us is but an asset on a spread sheet. Our homes, our schools, the institutions that keep us safe, such as our prison system; he considers them his now, to do with as he will.

6. I started seriously working on it as a book in May but much of the material was available already from my blog www.rickscottwatch.blogspot.com. Getting involved with Facebook, “Rick Scott Watch” (with the eyeball) I was tapped into a source and became a source of information concerning his administration. I was encouraged by the size of the “outrage” market.

7. I haven’t sought offers in the traditional route. And it’s been out less than 48 hours, so not yet.
8. That it’s funny as well as serious. If you want to commiserate with a fellow Floridian as equally pissed off as you are, buy this book. I want them to know that everything I say is backed up by copious notes at the end. (Kindle doesn’t allow footnotes to appear on the pages so these are at the back just before the end notes.) I invite them to explore the end notes thoroughly, use every link. Our election system is compromised but only by continuing to vote en masse can we show it for the ponzied and hacked scheme that it has become here in Florida. I demonstrate that. I want an investigation into 38,000 “rescanned” ballots on election night in Hillsborough County. There has never been an official inquiry into that. There remains no answer from officialdom. I find this unacceptable and, one could argue, indicative of a fraudulent election that gave us Rick Scott.

9. See answer #2.

10. I started out this life as a democrat, flirted with republicanism following 9-11, found out I was lied to, and returned to my roots with a vengeance.

11. Quoting from a letter I sent to him asking for comment, here is the last paragraph.
“All opinions, slang profane or otherwise, are honestly expressed.
I mean no harm to your person, your family. I only ask you remove yourself from public office and return to private business with all success and blessings following you. Failing that I will make every effort to remove you from your post by all means legal and non-violent, through whatever voice I can express myself.
I remain at your service for whatever response you’d care to give. Failing a response I simply must publish the work in time for broadest possible circulation.”

Voting System Major Flaws Before #RickScott eElection

2011-11-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

Recent documents have surfaced indicating that the Florida Department of State was warned about massive vulnerabilities in our elections systems prior to Rick Scott's election, and did nothing about it.

Florida's Secretary of State is the chief elections officer. But the office is partisan appointed.

Newly elected Gov. Charlie Crist appointed then Paco County Supervisor of elections Kurt Browning to the postion in 2007. Browning held that position until April 2010, then retired abrubtly, three weeks after Rick Scott announced his candidacy.

Browning, who was also the head of the ES and S (election machine vendor) elections supervisors users group, was re-hired as a double-dipper in January of this year.

But in July 2010, with Dawn Roberts serving as interim secretary of state, an outfit called Florida Voters Foundation sent her a memo highlighting problems with the voting systems statewide.

Paragraph one gets right to it:

"We are writing to express concern over threats to Florida elections including voting systemsdefects, cyber security administrative procedures and inadequate county funding. All pose serious threats to Florida elections including the August 24 primary in 49 days and the general election in November."

Page three, paragraph four, indicates that a software patch for chips in the tabulating machines by Dominion which had acquired some of their hardware from ESand S, and software from Premier, was not given to Dominion in time to prevent those chips from failing.

As we know, a failure in vote counting memory cards downloading was blamed in the 38,000 rescanned ballot fiasco in Hillsborough County. Hillsborough uses Dominion voting systems.

Earlier in the report the group points out flaws in the optical scanning machines by Premier, which were also bought by Dominion voting systems.

Thus, 32 counties out of 67 have reportedly aquired bad code, AND potentially bad hardware which were used in the 2010 election of Rick Scott, and will be used again in the 2012 elections.

The group also noted lax cyber security as far as the submission of electronic ballots in that the official in charge of voter system certification David Drury, told all 67 county supervisors of elections, that "encryption would be optional" in the submission of those ballots.

Additionally, the same screen "freezing issue" that surfaced in the undervote issue of 2006 in Sarasota County which resulted in the erroneous "election" of Congressman Vern Buchanan, was also still evident in ES and S machines in 16 counties.

All of this, leading up to the 2010 election of Rick Scott.

The likelyhood that Kurt Browning didn't know about all these flaws prior to his strategic retirement is highly doubtful.

David Drury who was on hand with Kurt Browning during the recount of 2006 in Sarasota County involving the defective ES and S machines, was employed throughout Browning's retirement/six-month vacation.

Of course none of this conclusively prooves that anyone, knowing of these vulnerabilities, conspired to use said knowledge to ensure that the candidate of his choice, won the election.

No. There is no proof here. Only a trail of Machiavellian coincidences, circumstantial evidence and motive.

Strangely Florida Voters Foundation, charitable 501(c) ceased updating their website after their July 7, 2010 report. The phone number to their Miami address directs one straight to an automated message system that makes no mention of their organization.

However, their sourcing material listed in their report includes the State Constitution, Florida Department of State records, records from the United State's anti-trust lawsuit against ES and S, and a product advisory from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. All credible.

Read all about the Hillsborough election flaws leading to the election of Rick Scott in Rick Scott:Enemy of the State.

Available for download at Amazon.com Kindle Store

New Book About Rick Scott

2011-11-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well someone went and did it. We're not saying who, but, here it is. And here's the link if you want a copy!!!!

Back in February "Rick Scott Watch" began the quest of documenting the horror: the election of and the continued assault on the masses by, Rick Scott.

Soon it became obvious that a combination of blogspot, facebook and twitter were needed in order to get the message out that we were under attack in Florida.

The blog posts began to take on the form of chapters within three months of beginning the combined effort known as "Rick Scott Watch. It wasn't until we delved into his election, though, the seriousness of what was happening in Florida really began to dawn on the author of this work.

These days the idea of waiting for a major publisher to make an offer on a work that needs to get out NOW is distasteful as it is comical. The traditional publishing industry isn't designed to be reactive in its current state. There was no other choice.

A few weeks ago, NYT produced an article on Amazon/Kindle's new format, Kindle Direct. It turned out to be a perfect match for us. The book arrives a year to the hour since his election. Recall, he wasn't officially the winner until the early hours of Nov. 3 because of a very suspicious SNAFU in the Hillsborough County elections office.

Read all about it on your Kindle or Apple analog device. Enjoy!

Sherlock Holmes Renders Judgment on Florida's Elections

2011-10-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

"In Florida we find ourselves facing precisely the same conditions leading up to vote tampering that likely transpired in ‘04. The groundwork has all been arrayed as it was then.

We have a group of quasi-religious, arch-conservatives embroiled up to their shoulders in the politics of a state; all moving forward, working on a presumption of a just-cause, wherein the ends justify any means.

They wish to use Florida to help convert America into their image of it; where corporate Christians rule the rest of us with profitable impunity. They remain at the controls of power, and yet inaccessible and unresponsive to us. They tolerate the media only so far as to get them through the next sham election cycle. Law enforcement is their private tool of separation and insulation from us.

Through their control over the state’s governor, they are also in control of the secretary of state’s office; he being the chief elections official. And in this strange case, unelected to his post; he is appointed by the governor.

Most curious.

The secretary is a lifelong conservative republican with religious leanings, Masonic connections, and obvious future political yearnings publicized in newspaper reports.

He is also a “double dipper” in the common parlance. That is to say, he is perfectly entitled to draw his pension, valued at more than $400,000, while also receiving his salary for his position. And therein could be found motivation to help perpetuate deceit and fraud.

But what evidence do we have he is “in” on the conspiracy? At most it is circumstantial, but, it is considerable.

Leading up to this particular election, Florida’s secretary of state is seen attempting to put as many ballots in the “provisional,” basket as is humanly possible. There, presumably, they can be quietly discounted with none the wiser at a later time.

He is shortening the early voting period; providing for mass confusion at the polling places. He also seeks to deny many good citizens the opportunity to register their friends and neighbors to vote.

This has resulted in numerous legal challenges which are costly. And yet, there is not a word of protest from our governor, the alleged staunch protector to taxpayer interests. Most irregular. And yet the pattern fits with our hypothesis of a group bent on subverting the vote by whatever means it sees fit.

The voting systems themselves are much the same as they were in ‘04. In fact the same software is in place as evidenced by our previous dealings with the Hillsborough County elections office.

The state and its electoral votes, are absolutely crucial to the outcome of the next presidential election. An election where not only the future of a state hangs in the balance, but the entire world.

In sum, there is every reason to believe fraud has taken place in the election of Rick Scott. As well, there is more reason and motive to suggest Rick Scott and his operatives will attempt to steal the election in 2012 for the republican party using the compliant and well-paid secretary of state toward that end."

Florida Vote in Peril!

2011-10-24T20:36:00.001-07:00

WARNING letter sent to #RickScott

2011-10-21T08:37:00.001-07:00

Oct. 19, 2011

To: Gov. Rick Scott:
Florida Governor's Mansion
700 North Adams Street
Tallahassee, FL 32303-6131
(850) 488-4661

Dear Governor Scott:

This is to inform you of the pending publication of my book Rick Scott: Criminal Intent
( another working title is Rick Scott: Enemy of the State) I plan on publishing soon, as an eBook available on Amazon.
There are serious allegations I make in this book aimed at you and your administration.

The top are as follows.
1. It is my expressed opinion election rigging, most likely through the 38,000 rescanned ballots in the middle of the night in Hillsborough County, either carried the day for you or prevented a recount and we will never know which. I base this off conversations with officials at the elections office, the history of that office well documented in the public record, the history of Diebold/Premiere machines here in Florida which were bought and still in use by Dominion voting systems both in hardware and software. I also base this off the shear outlandish number of the tainted ballots and the method in which the rescanning was handled, sans a full canvassing board. I also base this off your general willingness in everything you do, to subvert the law, or to remain purposefully ignorant of illegal acts or “blunders” curiously benefiting you. I never purport proof that you directly had knowledge of said election rigging/tampering, only that you are the recipient of your office illegally and may know you are, and most assuredly should know. I also base this expressed opinion off the fact I have made the allegation repeatedly in newspaper and web forums all over the state and the country (most often in Huffington Post). I have even filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office, which has been passed on to the Sec. of State’s office and there has been no response from anyone whatsoever. Dead silence. Most concerning indeed.
2. In the book I also remark heavily on your association with the Koch brothers. Yes, one trip to the Vail summit you obviously meant to conceal from us is enough proof for me or any reasoning creature of their undue influence. That the pattern is evident in all that you do you mean to transform Florida not solely for the purpose of creating jobs, but the subversion of the constitution, with an eye toward bringing the dawn of a new age of corporatism designed to commodify and enslave us. All well-thoroughly expressed in the work.
3. I reiterate all previous allegations against you as expressed in the Department of Justice Press release regarding HCA and newer allegations expressed against you during the primary, regarding Solantic.
4. In the work I also show where your religious comments bespeak of an effort on your part to reduce the separations between church and state which is a founding principle of this country. I note with alarm your Lt. Governor also makes religious remarks “Christianity is under attack” which more than hint at a governing policy on the part of your administration to reduce us to a state of militarized, pseudo-Christian fascism here with an eye toward ushering in a large scale influx of military industrial businesses. This in a broader effort on the part of like-minded fascists you associate with to ignite World War III for financial gain and power.
5. In general I further maintain you foster a pattern of quid pro quo, coupled with an opacity toward the press, which can only lead to, or demonstrate an extant state of pay-for-play corruption, and a selling off all our public institutions for either unseen financial gain, or increased power.

It was not my initial intent to make such a serious work when I began this book. At the time I began I felt the corporatism and tea party conservatism you espoused was silly and would likely be a temporary annoyance that would make good fodder for a tome of humor and commentary. But I discovered something far more dangerous in what you are doing. Things that absolutely require the strongest response in my medium, which is commentary.
I have replied to your forums on Twitter and Facebook, these being your expressed preferred methods of direct communication, and you have not addressed any of my concerns. I have made efforts to confront you personally regarding my concerns. Most notably at the resort in Stuart Florida, during your Lincoln Day Dinner tour. You remain for practical purposes, wholly inaccessible to the common citizen. Your schedule is posted day-of, or day-after your appearances. Or, you appear only at events where democrats, or citizens with protests or concerns, are either barred from attending or physically removed for voicing them .
Failing all else I send you this with my contact information should you decide to address these concerns or offer rebuttal.
I have never met you. In video clips I have seen, you seem like a genuinely pleasant person in terms of surface social conduct and conversation. In this regard I bear you no ill-will.
However, I feel your actions and the apparent ease with which you harm our citizens through your initiatives hints toward some form of inherent defect in your character and deep pathology. I have said as much in my video blogs. Unfortunately my honest opinion of your condition is rather grave. Of course I am not a licensed professional only a citizen with an education and an opinion.
Nevertheless, I think you have convinced yourself – somehow – that what you do is acceptable, given the corrupt practices of our time. I think you further lie to yourself using religious, nationalistic reasons, and free market mantras, that what you are doing is for “the greater good.”
I openly admit that in this regard and for precisely the same reasons, Hitler was similarly inclined. And thus, given your wealth, your current position, the hold you have on our legislature and your obvious future aspirations, a similar end result is entirely possible if your forward progress remains unchecked.
So the strength in my convictions – and my strongest possible words honestly expressed - comes from the seriously deleterious affects your actions continue to have on our state. They require strongest possible words – at times utterly profane, I admit this here - in published form in order to awake and marshal public opinion to counter what can only be viewed as deliberate attacks, warfare, on our citizenry and our constitution.
All opinions, slang profane or otherwise, are honestly expressed.
I mean no harm to your person, your family. I only ask you remove yourself from public office and return to private business with all success and blessings following you. Failing that I will make every effort to remove you from your post by all means legal and non-violent, through whatever voice I can express myself.
I remain at your service for whatever response you’d care to give. Failing a response I simply must publish the work in time for broadest possible circulation.
Sincerely,

David Anthony Kearns
Palm Bay, Florida

Suck Ass Journalism at its worst

2011-10-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Scott: I want Florida to be science, tech hub: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

I don't even feel the need to comment on this one. Can a whore-nalist kiss ass any harder?

Rick Scott Psychopath

2011-10-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

BS Explanations of a Hacked Vote Caught on Film

2011-10-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have to say Mr. Abercrombe seems nervous as hell. Maybe it was just in that film.(See here for a better view) And what is the deal with this situation? Here we see the ballots being hauled into the elections office out of the back of someone's car? Not county vehicles? In an interview with Earl Lennard, he mentioned a county truck that had a tire flat. (He also said all of this happened during the primary and not the general election between Scott and Sink).

Again, Abercrombie repeats precisely the same line, and does so nervously.

Five early voting places across most of north and west Tampa. They discovered the problem late in the day. They drove the ballots to be rescanned to the Falkenbrug Road location. If as they said in one article, there were 15 workers rescanning 38,000 ballots throughout the night, that means each would be expected to handle 2,550 some odd ballots. Assuming 5 seconds for each ballot to run through the machine, that's four hours, accounting for each worker with a break for the bathroom.

If they "discovered" the problem at 10:30 p.m. assume an hour to drive the "voted ballots" to the office. This exercise was nearly over by 1 a.m. or shortly after according to some press reports.

The math on this likely doesn't wash.

End result? No recount, and we ended up with Rick Scott as our governor.

Update: More hink from the Scott election in Pinellas County. Check the guy grabbing the ballots and stuffing them into a box on the back of his truck! Nothing sketchy there!

Stan Explains the Emails

2011-10-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

Mother F*&cker Rick Scott

2011-10-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Stan Finds Rick Scott's Missing Emails!

2011-10-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

Stan Speaks Again!

2011-10-05T09:10:00.001-07:00

Defining #RickScottistan

2011-09-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some terms used to describe the Rick Scott administration. They will find use in our upcoming book about him. ENJOY!AND SHARE!

7-7-7: The Rick Scott Jobs plan summed up in meaningless vaguely “Dominionist” or quasi-religious repeated use of the number seven.

Chemical Jim Crow: Current suite of drug-testing laws attempting to marginalize state workers, middle class, poor, and minority communities.

Coupons for Students: The voucher program proposed for Florida schools.

Corporate Dark Age: The time we are living in.

Corporate food stamps: Corporate tax cuts as described by the Rick Scott team.

Corpservative: One who is all about corporate power.

Electronic voting: Method used to steal elections in 2000, 2006 and 2010 in Floriduh

E-Gate: the inadvertent and yet fortuitously strategic deletion of emails pertaining to the Rick Scott transitional government’s (likely) corrupt hiring practices. Also see “iDelete.”

Flori-duh: Mythical Florida as described in the corporate lie that the stupidity of the voters, and not the electronic voting machines, keeps screwing up and or stealing our elections.

FTD, also “Fuck the Doomed”: The conservative healthcare plan for the rest of us, in three words. After a quote from the cult classic movie, Where the Buffalo Roam starring Bill Murray. Also FTA, “fuck them anyway”, the essential response from conservatives when you point out that FTD is actually more expensive than a less aggressive stance toward the sick, the poor and the old.

Ginoke Trees: a kind of tree found only in Rick’s Scott’s Florida, capable of thought, planning, and hard work. Used in a Rick Scott inaugural sentence. “The Ginoke trees that surround us are what they are, because they had a plan.”

Glitch: A random excuse used by software vendors and elections officials to describe Machiavellian screw-ups with the voting. Seldom explained, and soon forgotten. 2. An excuse used to conceal a stolen election. e.g. “When they stole the election for Rick Scott, they likely did it in Hillsborough County.”

Gulag, Inc.: Program of privatizing all prisons, providing a profit incentive to incarcerate as many law-abiding, and non-law abiding citizens, as humanly possible.

Hillsborough Glitch: the one that either elected Rick Scott or prevented a recount. We will never know which. The glitch that resulting in the hand-rescanning of 38,000 early voted ballots, in the middle of the night which has never been explained to the public.

iDelete: The event in which Rick Scott, through a staffer, fortuitously deleted some 200 emails off his iPad during the same time E-Gate was coming to light.

I-4 Apartheid: Current voting restrictions attempting to reduce minority, student, GLBTG, poor, middle class participation in the 2012 elections.

Junta: a perfectly reasonable description of Rick Scott and the Republican supermajority in the Florida legislature.

Koch Stasi: Americans for Prosperity and other Koch intelligence and intimidation networks. The string-pullers of the tea party movement.

Koch Suckers: referring to the Koch brothers, and or their willing serfs such as Rick Scott.

Koch Whore, also “Koch head”: A politician who deliberately “lifts skirt” i.e. is willing to hurt the public they serve through act, vote or speech, in order to court Koch or big business financial support for present or future political position.

Lincoln Day Dinner: an excuse to get clubby with wealthy donors to the GOP while the teachers you are beggaring are screaming to keep their jobs just outside the walls of a resort where you are hob-nobbing.

Magic Coupon: Voucher. Any worthless promise given as the bait-and-switch for privatizing public programs and institutions.

Motherfuckers: metaphorically speaking, people who will not stop at merely “schtupping your mom”. See previous reference to Koch Whore for similarities.

NARO, aka the New Ayn Rand Order: the deflection of blame for any self-interested atrocity by use of Ayn Rand as an excuse kewpie.

Obama: Rick Scott’s catch-all prefix to any number of words, policies, concepts, or anything in the physical universe, which can be blamed for a great evil. (Obamamath, Obamaliberal, Obamarail, Obamacare, Obamamosque etc.)

Pornservative: Perversely pornographically conservative. Or, a flagrant, pornographic distortion of conservative values personified in vote, speech or act.

Republican Super-pejorative: The republican supermajority in the Florida Legislature.

Ricky-World: an altered bizaro universe, cosmology, or ethos, whose logic is vastly divergent with the real world occupied by those of us who are not Rick Scott.

RILAB: “Run it like a business” , also LGTW “Let’s get to work” also RILAFWH, run it like a fucking whore house.

Screwed Pooch: The 2006 election race of Jennings v Buchanan in the 13th congressional district, Sarasota County. 18,000 under-votes were noted on touch screen iVotronics machines by ES&S, Inc. Buchanan won by 369 votes, after a recount on Nov. 13.

SOFARRM: The totally illegal regulatory reform initiative by Rick Scott to hold up all regulations (AKA laws) for his personal review and ruling prior to permitting them to be implemented, regardless of the fact they were voted on by previous legislatures. Acronym for the program outlined in his inaugural address.

Staffer: catch-all waste-basket of blame in the Rick Scott administration.

Teabaggers, teapotters etc.: Members of the tea party used by Kochs for nefarious purposes which often run directly contrary to the interests of all people, teabaggers or otherwise. Also Koch-baggers, Hate-Baggers

Tea scorn: the especially rancid brand of intolerant scorn used by the tea party.

Tea-Pawns: tea party member.

Tea-Bubble: the sudden deflation of the tea party movement with the death of the Ryan Health Care Plan. On or about May 26, 2011. Coinciding with Rick Scott’s 29 percent approval rating by Quinnipiac University. Scott’s numbers were the lowest among six hated governors studied.

VQWH , also The Volusia Quantum Worm Hole: Election night in the year 2000, some 16,022 votes were counted backwards for Al Gore in the Bush v Gore presidential race in Precinct 216, Volusia County, which at the time was using voting machines by Global Election Soutions, later Diebold, later Premiere, now Dominion voting systems. No attempt has been made to explain the VQWH by officialdom since Gore conceded the race.

Walmart Jesus, also, Tea- Jesus, also JesusLITE™. The corporate branding of the word “Jesus” or the concept of Christianity for nefarious purposes. This version of Jesus bears no resemblance to that spoken of in the accepted Christian scripture. Hence they know him not.

Are we serious? "Free Speech" Zones?

2011-09-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

This week the Orange County/Orlando PD are enforcing a “free speech zone” plan for the Orange County Convention Center during the travelling lunatic asylum called the Republican Party debates and the straw poll.
And now a word from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law….” Yadda yadda. You SHOULD know the rest. Live by it.
Time and again these zones have been found to be unconstitutional, legally unenforceable. And yet we saps continue to fall for it.
A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel concerning these two zones, capable of containing 200 people, (Wowzers! Really? Thank you Orlando for defending freedom!) failed to address the entire issue of previous challenges to the very nature of these zones.
A reporter can’t do a Nexus search, or even a Google? No? Too much?
So again, we witness journalism at its finest, by stenography.
Let’s not alert the public that this has all been tried before repeatedly. And the courts ruled in favor of those who challenged these “zones of free speech”. That in essence, the entire country is in fact, a free speech zone.
Yes, Virginia. It’s okay to protest where ever you feel like it provided that place is public.
We need to stop paying attention to these goddamn “zones” or “cages” of free speech. They are NOT repeat NOT constitutional nor do they serve anything but the status quo. Not freedom.
It is time for some or all of us to suffer arrest rather than continue to allow these piecemeal suppressions of our rights.
To that end:

Here are some new ground rules for protesting.
1.Don’t ask where you can protest. Just protest.
2.Never fill out a permit to protest. Just stop that weak assed crap right now. Stop it. Just stop.
3.Don’t be afraid to get arrested to protect the Constitution. People are dying for your right to do this. Don’t betray their sacrifice by being so weak you are too scared to stand up for freedom. Stop that. Now.
4.Say whatever you need to, to get yourself heard.
5.Don’t be afraid to be called a thug or shrink at your civic duty to protest because someone said you’re engaging in “class warfare.” Yeah? And?
6.Every so often you may need to call someone an mf. So be it. There are a lot of those in power now. Use it as it applies. Eric Cantor, for instance. The point is, stop being so polite. Defend free speech by actually using it.
7.Be inventive with your protest, creative. Perfect example. Is a large Pink Snuggie an article of clothing? Or, is it a sign? Well, it can be both, with a little bit of black electrical tape! How about these letters in black on a nice bright pink Snuggie FU GOP. They’re telling you to remove your sign? “I don’t have one. I am wearing this. This is an article of clothing, officer.” Tie them in knots. Don’t make things easy. Let them do the work figuring out what you’re doing wrong.
8.Don’t drink alcohol when protesting or do drugs as it gives them an excuse to arrest you and discredit your cause.
7.Be on time for your protest. Don’t arrive late and be all half assed about it.
Know what your aims are and what you plan to do.
8.Do not use violence in your protest. But if it is used against you, cover up, and make sure someone in your group is filming it. Get it on YouTube.
9.If you get arrested, don’t resist with anything but passivity. Battery on an LEO is a felony. Don’t be stupid. Make yourself heard, get yourself filmed as you are being arrested.
10.On film state specifically who you are, what you are protesting, and why you refused to comply with the officer’s order. i.e. “My name is John Jones of Oak Street Orlando, I am protesting the outrages perpetrated by this governor, I have every right to be here in a public place with this sign in my hand.” It’s that simple.

Let's be careful out there. But let's also quit this crap of letting Big Corp/Big Government corral us into pens. You know who submits to pens ever so politely?

Sheep. Think of sheep everytime you see one of those cages.

Why Ricky Wants to Kill University Tenure: Koch

2011-09-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Right now the weakling, lockstep legislators in Tallahassee are preparing to consider changes to higher education. These would mirror those done to K-12, and those changes already in place in the Republic of Texas.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is the paragon of higher education, let’s learn from him. Sure. Because that makes sense.
You have to ask yourself why Rick Scott, a man not known for his deep and probing intellect, nor even his ability to successfully string words together, simply must-must-must meddle with higher education in our state?
Koch is the answer.
A major Koch agenda is to reign in one of their perennial night terrors: an independent academia, higher education. They give seminars on morphing higher education to suit their needs at their conferences.
The BP oil spill is a perfect example of the benefits of an independent system of higher education.
USF is to be commended for their work using oceanographic research vessels to find the missing oil on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. They, along with Woods Hole Oceanographic and the University of Georgia were all instrumental in telling BP, NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the world, “no, the oil is not gone. Not by a long shot. Most of it sunk to the bottom.”
If they hadn’t been diligent in their work, we’d all be swallowing the line of filth from “officialdom” that matter can simply vanish.
This group of universities was also instrumental in challenging the laughable flow rate estimates from BP, the ones that sought to minimize the volume of oil coming from the end of their busted pipe at the bottom of the ocean, in order to save themselves from heavy, deserved fines.
Or how about the USF researcher who found more contaminated beaches despite the assurances of BP, and state and county officials, that there were none to be found west of Destin?
Try all of this without an independent academia. People get tenure at universities precisely for this reason, so that research can remain pure; untainted by corporate pressure and influence. Whether through the arts, science or math, so that inquiry can be something that benefits all of us.
The Kochs want to end all that of course.
One of their programs is reigning in higher learning. They are going after EPA internships

for example. They want to stop that. You know that radical agenda to protect the water supply?
Their attempts to infiltrate FSU are now famous. In case you hadn’t heard, Charles Koch provided millions in charitable donations this past March to the Florida State’s economics school through his foundation. But, the money comes with a hitch.
The foundation’s advisory board now has control over hiring decisions in the department. Those using the grant money must submit applications show that their research meets with the goals of the foundation, which obviously will follow along the lines of Friedmanian laisseze-faire , “pay more to the rich” cruelty, no doubt.
Sadly FSU took the money.
What’s sort of odd is, the money also came with another little hitch: the new hires taking advantage of the charitable donations for their salaries, would come into their new jobs with tenure! Their hiring also would be approved by the trust’s advisory board.
In essence, the Kochs are hiring, nay, installing, teachers in the economics department at the oldest state university in Florida. Tenure was key. They had to have tenure going in.
Who gets tenure on day-one? How is it we allow billionaires to install their operatives at a public university in our state?
Why?
So here’s our new governor fresh from his meeting with the Kochs during their “come to Muhammad” summit in Vail. You remember? The one our governor tried to sneak off to, but was only caught in the act by an enterprising reporter for St. Pete Times, otherwise we would never have heard a thing about it?
As said earlier, documents obtained in previous seminars, show that changing how universities think, how they do things, is a top priority for these Kochs. They give seminars about it at their functions. (See the link at the first reference below)
Right? So, here he is, Rick Scott come down from the mountain and all the sudden, university professor tenurship is the new target. It’s the greatest threat to freedom since the Cuban Missile Crisis! Sure! Didn’t you know that? What’s wrong with you?
Once that tenure is stripped, gone is academic independence to do work that might help write laws to protect us from corporate predators.
Soon a newly installed Koch professor is telling us that not only are there billions and billions of gallons of oil to be had in the Everglades (there aren’t) but drilling in the Everglades is actually good for our environment.
And that’s why Ricky is so damned interested in destroying tenure in our university system: because the Kochs told him to.
But the caveat for the FSU case will be framed as follows: in those cases where corporate donations are used to fund tenure, tenure can remain. The public taxpayer cannot fund university professor tenure.

Pam Bondi covers Ricky's unethical backside like an accomplice

2011-09-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

Getting awfully damned sick and tired of Pam Bondi.

Just hours before Ed Buss, former Department of Corrections Chief officer for the State of Florida was scheduled to appear Sept. 16 before an appeals court and give a deposition, Attorney General legally blocked him from doing so.

This is the news that greets us this morning: Bondi Scott-blocked his testimony.

Ed Buss was fired by Rick Scott: there it is. There was no "parting of the ways" or any of that happy horseshit they feed you.

He was hired out of Indiana Department of Corrections, then the director, to come in and take over here, because people from out of state are smarter. That must be it. Hell, Scott even entered a small bidding war with Michigan, remember? We just had to have him!

But some hires are so smart, they actually are smarter than the governor! And, perish the thought, they have a conscience and they can actually add and subtract.

What Buss discovered was troubling to the governor: that privatizing 30 prisons from Bradenton to Key West would actually cost the taxpayers $25 million in as yet unpaid severance in the form of sick leave, bonuses and so forth.

He kept trying to tell people this. That on balance, there were no savings to speak of! Effectively none!

You take the pending doom of Belle Glade, which is home to the Glades Correctional Institute, which would close down in the privatization plan. How do you quantify that misery?

GCI IS the town of Belle Glade, Palm Beach County. It is the economic spine of the community. It has been for 80 years.

But, in Ricky World, it is more important to take public properties, facilities and services and hand them directly over to his corporate pals, like Geo Group Inc., the top contender for Ricky's favor in the Friends of Rick (FORK) Gulag Inc. program.

Geo Group gave $25,000 to Rick's inaugural fund, so he could put on his huge shindig. Longtime friend and lobbyist for Scott, Bill Rubin, is also a lobbyist for Geo Group. One of Rick’s transition team’s budget advisors, Donna Arduin, was a former trustee for Geo Group’s property trust.

We simply must, must, must privatize prisons, don't you get it? This has to happen, even before we improve our infrastructure. I mean like, yesterday people, even if it doesn't save any money.

This is from a recent St. Pete Times article. Here's one of the reasons why this just has to happen: because it will please those Koch suckers, Dave and Charlie, who fund Reason Foundation:

"Some of the early momentum for prison privatization came from a policy brief by the Reason Foundation, a conservative think tank with the GEO Group among its many donors, and Florida TaxWatch, a business-backed policy group. The groups proposed a privately run continuum of care model for prisoners in two regions of the state."

Geo Group’s footprint in Tallahassee politics is large. In 2008, House Speaker Ray Sansom reportedly slipped a line item or two into a bill resulting in a shift in funding enabling Geo Group to build a private prison in Santa Rosa County, where Sansom is from, called Blackwater Correctional Institute. The modern facility is located but a few miles from the extant, Santa Rosa Correctional Institute, a fully functional prison in every way.

As late as Sept. 6, 2011, the FBI were still investigating the relationship between Ray Sansom, and Geo, even seizing a computer belonging to a Santa Rosa County Commissioner in their quest.

Six hundred million dollars has been shifted in the state budget just waiting for Geo and their lone competitor in the market space, Corrections Corp of America, to come in and play with. What's wrong with you people? It's time to usher in the age of Gulag, Inc.! Come on! Get on board or get left behind.

Who cares if privatizing prisons in Arizona has been shown to be more, not less expensive to the taxpayers; creating a world in which Corp. Jail cherry picks the healthy prisoners - we got us a fine young buck over here, all his teef and evuhthing - from "the traditional models" just so Gulag Inc. can stay within the letter of Arizona law? Who gives a shit, right?

Who needs for even one shred of information to come out at this time during a lawsuit filed on behalf of correctional workers because the destruction of the state's pension system in order to make this happen is unconstitutional in the state of Florida?

Enter Pam Bondi, Ricky's accomplatrix, to shut down this line of inquiry with an emergency order. Her law degree serving once again as Ricky's fig leaf. It's disgraceful.

Explain one way keeping Ed Buss from testifying protects the citizens of Florida from crime? You can't. Face it. It is as naked and shameless a move on the AG's part as you could have dreamed up in a seedy Florida crime novel.

In Case You Missed US on Left in Dixie

2011-09-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

Video streaming by Ustream

Florida's Chemical Jim Crow Law aka drug testing

2011-09-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

At some point, well early in the game Rick Scott knew – he just knew – he wanted to drug test everything not nailed down. It was a mission!
He was behind a measure to make the poor welfare recipients submit to drug screening in order to obtain help from the state, and from their own unemployment insurance accounts that they had already paid into before they were fired.
Oh, and, by the way? He was the principal shareholder in one of the biggest providers of random drug-screening services in the country, and certainly in Florida, Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care centers.
Ooopsie! Didn’t see that coming? No?
Leave off that what he was essentially doing was criminal-profiling by use of poverty as the screening criterion.
Let’s just talk about this fading, ever-blurring concept called, “conflict of interest.” Again, what are the three funniest words in the English language when strung together? Right! “Florida Ethics Commission.” Very good, have yourself a Klondike Bar on me.
Apparently he has never heard of this wondrous thing called “conflict of interest”. So too, our state has stopped caring for it, or seeking to define it in most situations with regard to Rick Scott. Likewise our officials and news media are more apt to let him slide until such time as he works himself out of the latest ethical quagmire he has gotten himself into, and moves on to the next, over and over, and over again in a dizzying daisy chain of Machiavellian bumbling that always seems to work out in his favor.
When he first detailed his plans to drug test some, or all, state employees, people sat up and took notice. He had a hard-on for it, lusting for everyone to start taking drug tests, beginning with those working for Florida.
In a completely unrelated thread started long ago – oh sure, you buy that, don’t you? – Scott started the Jacksonville-based company Solantic Urgent Walk-in Care, in 2000. It grew to include 32 urgent care centers statewide. In 2007 he reportedly sold a 30 percent share for $100 million to Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, a private equity investment firm in New York. His remaining stake was valued at $62 million.
“Don’t you have one of the largest drug screening companies in the state, Rick?” (this is you talking.)
“No, no, children. Shhhhh. Mustn’t notice the bad thing.”(this is Rick.)
“Are you sure?”
His answer was, yes, he did but there was no conflict of interest. End of discussion.
Well there very much was an apparent conflict of interest, despite how nicely a bland denial sounded to those who approve of his every move.
His response to the un-svengalied was essentially, ‘Well, okay but for starters I am turning my interest in that company over to a revocable trust held by my wife Anne, so there is no conflict of interest.’
(You again) “Well, that doesn’t matter; YOU would still get the money from all the drug screening eventually. YOU would also see a nice bump in value if the company ever went public!”
‘Well this company will never, ever, never do business with the state.’
Which is a very slick caveat, you have to admit, considering that he was considering privatizing prisons, and public schools.
So, yes, technically, if somehow he could mandate it via magic wand that the company would never-ever-never do business with state government ¬¬- and he had no earthly authority to make this stratospherically stupid statement - it wouldn’t be doing business with the state, it would be doing business with private corporations that he had sold off government institutions to.
See how he thinks? Is it clear now?
There were broader ethics problems with his stake in Solantic, as the St. Petersburg Time’s Michael Bender pointed out on April 13, 2011, and this is likely where his relationship with Team Scott went downhill :

“Then-Attorney General Bill McCollum's campaign questioned how a Scott administration would handle Solantic, which is regulated by the state Agency for Health Care Administration and hires doctors that are licensed by the Department of Health.
“ Both agencies are run by the governor's appointees. In the general election, Democrats alleged that Scott started Conservatives for Patients Rights to fight President Barack Obama's health insurance changes as an attempt to protect Solantic, which serves high numbers of uninsured. If more people were insured, Democrats suggested, Solantic could lose business.”

When people pointed out that Bender was right, that virtually every single way he could run it, he would still be holding a massive conflict-of-interest sign in his hands called “Solantic”, he decided to sell his remaining interests to Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe.
And it took him until April (2011) to do it.
Reflect for a moment on the Boolean anti-logic at work here: Despite the fact he was, allegedly, no longer in control of said company, he sold it anyway.
And, this is the key part, he has NEVER, EVER, NEVER disclosed the sale price, nor terms of the sale, to anyone, EVER.
This despite the fact the company was undeniably worth more after he rammed through his draconian drug testing policies.
Every public official has to disclose any business transaction, any receipt of monies, or gift, no matter how small, while they continue to serve at the public’s pleasure. It is a law obeyed by city council members and county commissioners on up the food chain.
Rick Scott has never released the details of this sale to anyone despite the fact he most certainly benefited from it, financially. And the newspapers, apparently, have stopped asking him about it.
It’s another issue which, for whatever reason, has ceased to exist.
As far as the drug testing goes? Here’s what happened.
House Bill 353 was signed into law by the Big Guy, on June 1. The measure which went into effect July 1, 2011, requires those receiving welfare checks to submit blood, urine, or hair samples for drug screening prior to receiving their state welfare checks. Oh, and once again, the accused pay for their own screenings up-front, and wait for reimbursement on the back-end from us, once they are deemed innocent by virtue of clean result.
The measure also requires the Department of Children and Families to inform families they can avoid testing, if they don’t apply for benefits.
Gee thanks.
The history of “drug test the poor” predates Rick Scott.
In 2009 there was a state senate bill for drug testing the unemployed (SB 2062) produced by Sen. Mike Bennett (R-Bradenton). Yes, the same state senator who was videoed with soft-porn images open on his personal browser, while the senate was discussing new restrictions on abortion in case you were wondering.
In any event, Bennett admitted his decision was purely economic. That the unemployment trust fund was “running dry” and so, why not trim the fat, and make sure the money was going to unemployed folks who are more deserving?
“It’s the people who really need the unemployment (compensation), those are the ones I am here to protect,” he said on a Fox interview with Steve Doocy in March 2009.
The bill died. But, the idea lived on despite a landmark Michigan federal court case, which branded such measures as unconstitutional.
No matter. Rick Scott campaigned on making it a law. And suddenly, following the November 2010 election, it seemed all the furious governors of the Kochpocaplypse and their Tea-colytes and their Tea-cozies in their respective state houses, wanted to drug test hell out of those scum-sucking poor, and the unemployed!
Yeah! Get those f-ers! The damned jobless poor! Who do they think they are?
And who among them crowed most vociferously for such measures? Yes, he who owned a 70 percent share in a multi-million dollar company that provided drug tests for $35 a-pop, one Richard Lynn Scott.
In March 2011, Scott signed a bill into law giving the state the power to randomly drug test any state employee, at any time. The $35 test would be paid first by the accused, and reimbursed should the test prove negative. Florida was first of 27 states to book this landmark piece of legislation!
Yay! Go us!
That month State Representative Matt Gaetz (R- Fort Walton Beach) took up Bennet’s fallen banner and pushed a bill in the house to random drug screen those seeking unemployment compensation.
The bill produced a lot of press for Gaetz, some contention between himself and democrats in the house, voicing meek opposition, and even some chiding by fellow republicans who knew damned-well they were trying to shoe-horn in something that was already declared illegal.
It never got out of committee.
However, the measure to go after the welfare recipients, did make it out of committee, and through both houses like crap through a goose. Rick Scott was again on the boards with another win, June 1, 2011!
Yeah! Hell yeah! Eat it, POOR!
It took a while for mega-media to catch up with what was happening in Florida, that being a stepwise assault on the U.S. Constitution.
T.J. Holmes of CNN had the governor on during his morning show June 3, 2011 to ask him, just what in hell was going on down here? It became a venue to witness what we here at Rick Scott Watch are calling The Jim Crow Chemical Litmus Tests.
All the old stereotypes that make the racists grin like a dawg, and the minorities a little fearful and mad as hell at white America, come bubbling to the surface with these Jim Crow litmus tests.
Welfare=black, to the racists; and African Americans know damned well what the power structure is talking about, when it beats up on folks who have to ask for welfare.
Offering an opinion here: this catalytic angst might just be what the whole exercise of drug testing poor people, particularly welfare recipients, is all about.
You have to remember we’re dealing with an agenda foisted on us by people – the Kochs, namely, and their friends – who have lost the taste in their mouths for mere money. There’s no buzz anymore in just collecting piles and piles of cash. No bounce, no kick, see?
And their little games have proceeded to such a degree they’re now beyond merely holding power. No, now they’re into manipulating society itself in order to ‘hit that main line.’ Currently that’s the intoxicating buzz; like Mortimer and Randolph Duke, of Trading Places, remember? Manipulating vast sums of money, swinging the congress hard right, then holding it hostage, seeing if they can actually crash the system. Ooooh yeah baby! That’s their heroin.
When they get bored with merely manipulating society, surely they will chase their dragons on to other diversions, such as genocide, perhaps, starting War III. Stuff like that, see? That’s the next kick!
Back to T.J. who is a black dude on the left side of the screen, and Scott on the right side of the screen, again, who is most definitely a white dude; each playing their awkward part in describing, assailing and defending the Jim Crow litmus test.
You would agree that after the governor signs the bill into law, might be a little late, CNN? Perhaps?
Never mind, it made for hearty television anyway.
T.J.: “You don’t know if welfare recipients are using drugs. If you don’t know, why treat them like you suspect that they are?”
RICK: “Oh, I’m not at all. I just want to make sure, our taxpayers are not interested in subsidizing drug addiction.”
This is classic Rick Scott, by the way:
Q: “Governor, what makes you think the sky is green?”
A:“Oh, I don’t. I just want to make sure everyone knows that the sky is green.”
Later T.J. really nails him down. He just keeps after it. Rick Scott, as always, is a hostile witness for the defense.
T.J. : “You believe that plenty of people on welfare are drug users but it doesn’t sound like you want to say that.”
RICK: “Sure, T.J. Studies show that people who are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people who are not on welfare.”
T.J. (Smiles. Literally chewing his own fingernails, perhaps at the pun ‘higher users’) “Sir to that point, that would stop most people in their tracks. I don’t have the studies you are referring to but, you’re saying there are people out there who need this assistance who have lost jobs and are on welfare, they have a higher tendency to use drugs.”
RICK: “Absolutely the studies show that people who are on welfare are using drugs at much higher percentages than the population.”
Okay, there it is. He said it not once, but twice. There are studies out there; someone made these studies, and, they found out in these studies, that welfare recipients to a larger extent than in the general population, are drug users.
And then he went sideways-strange. Rick Scott’s Boolean anti-logic again. It was a mish-mash of conflicting statements that came next.
“The bottom line is, if they’re not using drugs it’s not an issue. Our taxpayers don’t want to subsidize someone’s drug addiction. It’s going to increase personal responsibility it’s the right thing to do for Floridians.”
Did you notice? Drug use just became full-blown addiction with all the associated stereotypes: a meth zombie or a rabid oxy fiend shooting up a walk-in clinic.
And even if they aren’t doing drugs; Floridians don’t want to subsidize their drug addiction? What, like in the future? Like, in case they were planning on it?
I just lost my job. I am clean, drug-free. But since I know the state is going to drug test me, I had best not pick up that nasty meth habit I was planning on getting. Whew, am I glad Rick Scott is looking out for me. I don’t mind marching right on down to the Solantic and paying $35 for a drug screening.
Certainly doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.
It obviously didn’t either to T.J. who demanded to know how much this was going to cost Florida?
“It’s an insignificant amount. We’ll see when we find out how many pass the drug test.”
And was it an insignificant amount?
Fast forward to late August of 2011 one month after it went into effect. Just do it.
It turns out testing welfare recipients discovered that just 2 percent tested positive for drugs. Another 2 percent elected not to pursue their claims, likely until a later date when the drugs washed out of their system.
The remaining 96 percent of those taking welfare who subjected themselves to the screening? Yeah, they were clean.
The entire welfare assistance program costs $178 million. At this rate, the drug testing of people taking this money, costs just a little bit less to run than it does in savings.
Net savings between $3,000 to $8,000 annually to the state; again, against a program that costs the taxpayers $178 million.
Wowzers! What a savings compared to the total that’s like four thousandths of a percentage point (0.004 percent)!
Now, what if we get more people to NOT do drugs! Then, it won’t save the taxpayers any money whatsoever! Awesome!
Because that just might happen after year one, in that humans are only slightly more intelligent than chimpanzees, who know damned well to take their hand of a hot stove.
But here’s the important part to some; 1,000 drug tests were purchased, in order to facilitate this program for just one month, also known as 12,000 tests a year, let’s say, at $35 a pop. That’s $420,000 which is a nice revenue stream for someone. Not saying who!
And multiply this by 0.96 and we get $403,000 coming FROM the taxpayers going TO private industry. Remember, we the taxpayers reimburse those who test clean!
We’re saving money, yes, a smidge. But 96 percent of all that money saved isn’t being used for anything but funding private industry drug testing purchases. It’s one of those exerbikes going nowhere. At first, anyway; at first, it stays put.
As savings become losses, year to year, because people beat the system, or find clean urine, or stop drugging, this becomes an an additional tax on us, that goes directly into the pockets of private corporations. And now the exerbike begins moving backwards.
And now what? Well, why don’t we only let certain “approved” drug testing companies, who are Friends of Rick (FORK), take over all the contracts? Seems to be the direction he is taking, isn’t it?
And? What happens when a monopoly is in place? The price goes up. Savings to the taxpayers go down even further because no one wants to pay for the kits which are more expensive. Now the exerbike begins accelerating backwards.
And? Now let’s say during the next legislative session, the public is so beaten down and accepting of all this drug testing and U.S. Constitution-stomping bullshit, they cave-in and say ‘sure why not, what the hell, test the unemployed while you’re at it!’
How many people in Florida are unemployed at this writing? According to The St. Petersburg Times in late 2010, there were 1.1 million Floridians out of work, of whom 612,000 were receiving unemployment compensation.
If at some point in the next year, you randomly tested each, just one time, you’re talking about taking $21.4 million from the taxpayers/bosses/those paying into the fund, and giving that money to corporations.
Oh, I’m sorry, if you’re still working at a 2 % positive rate, that’s, hold on let me do this: $21.4 million -( $21.4 million* 2%)=$20,927,000. From the taxpayers/bosses/people who paid into it, directly to corporations. Here you go!
Now assuming, no budget increases - because that’s how he rolls, right? Hold the line - $800,000,000 (Senator Mike Bennett’s 2009 figure for the Unemployment Compensation fund, which is allegedly running out) minus $20,927,000= $7.8 million.
Is unemployment going up, or down, year to year? Well, thanks to Rick Scott and company, because they created so many new jobs by demanding more stringent controls on a woman’s uterus; flying to Panama; going to New York and D.C. to hang with Donald Trump; and doing away with high speed rail and so on, it is very doubtful that the unemployment rate is going down. So, because of this, we should see ourselves spending more, not less, on this drug testing program of the unemployed if they vote it in (and they will! You watch).
Are the unemployed any more likely to make this program a “savings” to the taxpayers buy doing more drugs and getting caught? Or, in that they managed to get shit-canned the right way, i.e. laid off without cause, are these folks actually more apt to pass the drug tests and end up costing us more year to year?
Because if we want this program to pay for itself or save us money, what we really need from the public is to do some damned drugs! I mean, really; can these people just do the right thing, and get high?
Answer? Class, what say you?
My guess is, these folks will pass their drug tests at a higher rate, year to year, than welfare recipients, who are also being drug tested. This means the allegedly dwindling unemployment compensation fund, will drain faster, as more people are put on it.
Also, do we double-dip on those taking their unemployment drug tests along with their welfare drug tests? How does that work?
Uh-oh! Sounds like we need an administration, or a new agency, to keep all these ducks in a row! A new agency in Rick Scott’s “smaller, more efficient government”? What is this?
Great, so a more massive program called, ‘test the unemployed’, will end up costing private business, taxpayers and people paying into the UC fund more money by giving directly to corporations at an accelerated rate, year to year.
Why not just impose a flat, 3 percent sales tax on everything fill up a big old bucket with cash, and then FORK it over to Rick’s pals, every year?
Because, that would be too obvious, class. We have to create a crisis, stir up old hatreds and stereotypes, vilify someone poor, further divide the masses, create a cash hamster-wheel that spills off to Friends of Rick on the side, so that folks don’t notice what we’re up to.
Let’s go back to Rick Scott’s chat with T.J. Holmes on CNN for a minute and reflect upon what we heard.
Yes, he talked about a study that showed welfare recipients take drugs “at a much higher rate” than the average population.
He said it twice!
At a higher rate?
No, no! He said at “a much higher rate.”
But is it even true?
Well, Rick Scott’s Jim Crow chemical litmus test gave us one half of the data to measure his assertion, didn’t it. Two percent tested positive for drugs in a sample of more than 1,000 people. A pretty decent sized sample.
What about the general population? Here’s a figure dug up by the Tampa Tribune citing the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Services, in their 2009 study: 8.7 percent. That’s the rate of illicit or illegal drug use, estimated among the general population, of people aged 12 years and older.
So, again, Rick Scott has no idea what he is talking about. And when he goes on national television and gets backed into a corner by a reporter actually doing his job – they are so rare these days – Rick Scott just begins pulling stuff out of his ass. Rick Scott just makes it up on the fly. Rick Scott just flat-out lies into the camera.
Does this surprise you?
Most of you say ‘no’ at this point. Further, you are almost angry at me for even suggesting you should be a little shocked. After all, this is Rick Scott we’re talking about.
Well guess what? This drug testing crap is now law in Florida. It’s the law. We are spoon-feeding private industry cash, with no observable benefit to ourselves.
Oh, but, not as many people will get high? Or do crimes? Is that it?
Really? That number of 612,000, for instance represents a bubble of unemployed people actually collecting unemployment. Hey, their weeks run out, remember? Just as the number seeking welfare recipients, represents a bubble of those eligible for their program. When people fall off those rolls, or when they test positive and can’t reapply for a time, are they apt to get high, then, or not?
Take your time answering. I am sure it’s taxing your mind something fierce! No, really. Use another nanosecond to think about it.
As folks fall off those rolls, they are just as apt to do drugs as they ever were.
This is one more Ricky World example of robbing the middle class to pay corporations, while services are being gutted.
These programs don’t pay for drug education or awareness or drug treatment, and they sure as hell don’t pay for psychiatric medicine to help anyone.
This puts a dent in nothing. It solves nothing. It takes money from the citizens and hands it over to corporations, with no benefit whatsoever to anyone other than those who make and administrate drug tests. People like Solantic.
And as their prices increase, and they will, we all give them more and more money.
We have not even mentioned the lawsuits these new programs will generate, nor the considerable sum we the people of Florida will have to expend fighting them.

Daughter-Gate

2011-08-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Can The Voting Machines Still Count Backwards?

2011-08-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

We recently ran into some interesting documents. Don't worry. They've been vetted. The book is called "63 Documents The Government Doesn't Want You to Read" Skyhorse Publishing 2011. (Okay, yes, Jessee Ventura's book, but, the documents are authentic.)

We spoke a few posts back about the Volusia Qunatum Worm-Hole event, where 16,022 votes were counted backwards for Al Gore in the 2000 election in precinct 216. We call it this because the official explanation of how negative votes can be counted in an election - where everything proceeds from zero and moves forward - requires exotic physics. That is, IF there was an official explanation. There has never been one, other than a single word, "glitch" a catch-all lie that, again, requires exotic physics to swallow.

Global Elections Systems (GES) machines were used. Remember the corporate blood trail: GES was bought by Diebold, whose voting division was renamed Premiere Elections Solutions, which was then bought by Dominion Voting Systems. There is a 65 percent chance you will vote on a Dominion system in 2012. Now, as said, the machines haven't changed, and the coding hasn't either. In fact, a trip to Hillsborough County elections proved that out: elections officials are still using GEMS software, the same software used by GES back in 2000!

Can it still count backwards, or have they fixed that yet? You ask this of any elections official where you live: watch the face go white, the lips pinch, sweat on the brow. Watch this face morph into a quizzical stare, as if to say "what on earth are you talking about?" In fact they might even say this to you "what on earth are you talking about?" You might even reference the Hursti Hack or The Princeton study, and they STILL are going to look at you with the dog whistle stare, the way your teenager does when you ask him a logical question.

Internal GES memos written after the Volusia Quantum Worm Hole , have surfaced. Here's a little taste of one written Jan. 18, 2001

"The problem is it's going to be hard to collect enough data to know what happened...."

Oops! Then later, same memo.

"If this happens, punt. That would have at least prevented the embarrassment of negative votes which is really what this is all about. Then John can go to Lana and tell her it has never happened before and that it will never happen again."

Nice. Those same words "never happened before, will never happen again" are used by officialdom over and over again after these mysterious Machiavellian glitches. And you know the artificial intelligence scientists must surely be on this by now, because, these "glitches" sure do seem to have a political agenda, AND a propensity to hide themselves in the statistical wash of numbers.

Yeah "this has never happened before, and it will never happen again" (accept when it does two years from now and we feed you the same line of bullshit).

Everyone on the same script. The only thing they were truly concerned with back in 2000 was the embarrasment. Here's more. After they discovered that someone had uploaded a second memory card during the election at precinct 216, they had no idea who done it, nor why, only that for some reason, this resulted in 16,022 negative votes, only in the presidential race. And because this glitch was artificially intelligent, a new life form, it didn't change the vote totals, so that that number jibed with the number of votes "cast". (Only weird thing here is, this figure 16,022 is way more than the number of registered voters in precinct 216 but, oh well).

"There is alway the possibility that the second memory card or the second upload came from an un-authorized source."

Really? There is that distict possibility, yeah. Or, someone who was "authorized" done a bad-bad thing, for money.

GES machines were all over the state in 2000. So there should have been a revote followed by a major investigation. That should have happened, in a sane and honest world. It didn't. Why? No answer given.

You know the problem of negative vote counting capability hasn't been solved. It persisted through the 2004 election of Bush over Kerry. Tests in 2006 and 2008 confirmed it was still there in the mix.

Ask you elections supervisor if the machines can still count backwards. See what kind of answer you get.

E-GATE!

2011-08-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Rick Scott's transition team apparently didn't understand our laws. Oh, yeah. That must be it.

According to the St. Pete Times as many as 50 email accounts of staffers, and Scott himself, were -ooopsie- deleted.

The company that may have done the deleting of these public records? Yeah, that would be his daughter's employer.

M'kay, sweetheart? Yeah? That work for ya? (closes fairy tale book here)

And you believe it was all an accident don't you? Because Uncle Ricky would never do something illegal would he? No. Just like he said on Rick Sanchez and CNN, "I was never accused of anything. I was never indicted."

Now he was given the honor of handing the dagger to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for them to do an investigation....on their boss.

Because that'll work, sure.

Meanwhile we have a top cop in this state who doesn't answer to Rick Scott in the chain of command, she answers to us. And her name is Pam Bondi.

Some people don't take Pammy too seriously because she's young, she's photogenic (adults can vomit here) and she's become the media darling of late. Think of her as Florida's legal version of Kim Kardashian; yeah, like that.

Some people think Pammy's nothing more than a pretty paper tigress who the Scott machine has seduced by puffing up her ego sufficiently by love bombing good sense, honor and duty out of her system like cult leaders are wont to do sometimes. Now she's more apt to run out and get herself photographed doing something uselessly photogenic than actually DO the job the voters of Florida elected her for; which is to investigate crimes where no one else can and do it impartially, effectively and with due-diligence.

And what about that? Not that FDLE can't investigate this matter but will they with due-diligence? If they do too good a job, and they still have insufficient evidence for an indictment, what then? The best among them will be targeted for "downsizing." After all, the common refrain these days in state work is "well, sorry but we gotta start somewhere."

The corrupt, screwed-up reign of Ricky-World continues.

The sublimely corrupt aspect in all of this is Ricky MAY (just may) have gotten his daughter involved in doing the dirty work. If so, it went like this: the Scott Team hired outside contractor Rackspace, of Texas to handle the email during the transitional government, and they contracted work out to Harris Media.

Harris media employs Rick's daughter, Allison, who recently was in the news for trading on her name in making sales pitches to drum up new business.

Newspaper's got a hold of this because St. Pete Times and others had been so damned dogged in insisting on getting a hold of the transitional government emails, because they were certain this told a story we needed to hear.

Eight months later word gets out: ooopsie daisy, they're gone. All the emails went bye bye. Oh well.

E-Gate is born.

And E-Gate, in a sane and honest world, should be this man's undoing.

I'm Not Paying You for Religious Advice

2011-08-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Governor Scott, I am not paying you to get into religion. I invite you to review our US Constitution. It has a proviision within which provides for a clear line between church and state. On a personal note anyone who can so casually attempt to destroy public education in my state, has no business whatsoever attempting to lecture me or anyone else as to religion. You had best pray your hypocrisy is well founded. For if there is a God, and he is active in our lives, he will exact retribution for what you attempt to do to the students of our state. Little more can the likes of Rick Perry teach me, or anyone else about spiritualism. Again, I say, I am not paying you to get into spiritual matters, at all. You are the governor of a state of some 18 million people, many of whom are Muslim (who you have already thoroughly offended with your advert, shameless baiting hate mongers and Quran burners) others are atheists, some are agnostic, some are Buddhist. Some really don't care to think about it, and that is their right. None of these folks need their tax dollars, even one cent, going to you so that you may delve into matters you clearly have no business getting into with us. Do your job, such as you can, or be gone. While you are at it, invite you to actually investigate who Christ was, those words of mercy he actually said, rather than regurgitate some half baked, narrow bandwidth Wal Mart version that offers no mercy to the poor, the hungry, the children, the addled of mind and so on. As you often have such a hard time doing, DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST, then open your mouth second. And for the love of the divine cosmic creature, such as may be, do your preaching on your own time, your own dime. Not mine.

Demanding Civil Rights from the Florida Redistricting Commission

2011-07-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sen. Don Gaetz Chairman of the Florida 2011 redistricting hearing committee

Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos

Sen.Thad Altman

Rep. Rich Workman

Rep. Steve Crisifuli

Rep. John Tobia

cc.

Dear Senator Gaetz, et al:

· I ask you to show cause for why I wasn’t permitted my prescribed three minutes time to finish my comments during the redistricting hearings at our Brevard County Commission Chambers, July 28, 2011.

· I also ask that you explain the overwhelming show of law enforcement (AKA ‘force’) in order to suppress my civil rights under Amendment I of the U.S. Constitution.

· I also ask that I be permitted to address you again, start to finish, for the three minute period, uninterrupted, provided I stay to topic and refine my message.

These terms seem more than reasonable given how you treated me.

My treatment at your heavy hands seems to mark a relative low-point in state partisan politics. Not a major low point, just a minor one; a cruddy little one that didn’t need to happen. Three officers and another unknown man in a suit to escort one citizen away from a microphone?

(http://myflorida.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=211#.TjLKG6ROxg0.blogger)

(My portion begins at 25:25)

Suffice it to say this hints to similar treatment of other citizens in the future which is why I take the time here. Better to nip this in the bud now.

With budget cuts, the removal of one road patrol officer affects an entire force. Everyone shifts to cover. This is a fact I am aware of in my former capacity of a news reporter. It is a fact you are aware of in your capacity as a public official, or should be.

By the way, were you all aware that serious accidents were recorded on Northbound I-95 in Jacksonville while two members of the highway patrol were tasked to baby sit this meeting from the terrible likes of me? Do the families of those injured by speeding motorists know where two members of the highway patrol were that morning?

The founding fathers were forced to shout louder with every assault on their liberties. We were taught this in public school. Many of us feel certain history will be among the first subjects to go the way of the dinosaur in the new corporate/voucher model some of you voted on with very little thought as to consequence. And we know the reason for that can be found in teachable moments just like this one.

As a former newspaper reporter I can tell you I have never witnessed such an event in all my time covering Brevard and Indian River County Commission meetings and hundreds of city council meetings. Never once have I seen a non-violent, non-cursing, flabby obviously harmless citizen removed to the back of the room so quickly and expeditiously for the impertinence of satire or meandering off-topic, as you say, Senator Gaetz.

”Junta, Pol Pot, joke,” When did these words become so dangerous to the legislative process? Since when is a three-minute time limit – and I wasn’t even there yet – the basis of a near-arrest? Pol Pot, after your treatment of me, IS relevant. I am amazed at how MUCH relevance he has! That a mere metaphor could illicit this sort of response (one Pol might have appreciated) is astounding.

The public expression of no-confidence in this or any process is feedback that is vital to the historic record. Let us agree it is not yours to decide by which editorial standards they may be deleted from the record, provided the expressions are not obscene or threatening. Let the market decide if you’ve earned the comments. Let history judge them.

The urge to purge our rancor at elected bodies, particularly those remaining ever-unavailable, who also seem bent on the destructive fascist course, does not diminish simply because the similar terms were said on previous days.

Disgust, and distrust are valid well-earned sentiments. Like love, these can come back to you when the collective cynicism of your elected body spawned them in our hearts. You should accept and learn from them. To rage at raindrops for their number is equally logical as begrudging honest rancor, no matter the volume or flavor in the expression thereof.

Your choice in applying force, menace, and in equal measure, the choice of some of you to sit idly by ignoring its application, is destructive to the public trust.

With the exception of Senator Gaetz, you all, listed here, are from Brevard County. Making you, technically, my neighbors! This further dilutes the meaning of a word which has been stretched threadbare by politicians.

You favored, or at least didn’t interrupt, those fawning presenters who had precious little to add in the way of substance.

When does one go to a meeting merely to slather praise on the moderators and nothing more? Was this entire event merely for the expression of gratitude at your expensive, imperious presence? Nothing submitted for view in a “transparent format” is still nothing. Still a null-set.

What an absurd event you all seemed to demand from us per show of force. Amid the kissing of small confused children and urging them to speak as well, there were NO maps to go off of.

You are legally obligated to provide a forum for “feedback” on the redistricting plan. There must be “feed” first, for there to be “back” second, as any electrician or guitar player will tell you. The topic was apparently, “redistricting exists; it happens.” And…? With this amorphous cloud as the framework how is “Pol Pot” precisely off topic any more than Ponce de Leon? I could say “gerbils”, and be equally on or off topic.

What a colossal “dog ate my homework” moment. And to think there are 26 of these meetings in all!

What a disservice we do as citizens of democratic society NOT to give you a ration of chips for this nonsense. We would be shirking our duty NOT to give you the business, as it were, even just a little bit.

I should be given the chance to once again speak before the redistricting committee. I have something important to say. Data, actual facts, that I never got to.

My personal observations shared here, I vow to leave out. I know you’ll thank me for it.

I will sharpen the message, if it pleases Your Lordships. I will practice and rehearse again so that it clips the wire under three minutes. I will bend my comments, and tailor them to your topic of voting districts, and the upcoming elections. I will not use the words Pol or Pot.

But in the end, I have a right to be heard by the commission, not shouted down, not tripped up in mid sentence before my time is up; not escorted away from the microphone as though I were a dangerous lunatic.

It is my right as a citizen of this state and this country.

Sincerely;

David Kearns

Florida Highway Patrol Used to Squash Free Speech at Redistricting Hearings

2011-07-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

VIERA- Today I(we/Rick Scott Watch) was the third speaker at the State of Florida redistricting hearing held at the Brevard County Government Complex. We were each allotted 3 minutes. I was removed from the podium at about 1 minute 30 seconds.

"Public testimony, free and unrestricted" said Rep. Rich Workman. My representative in the Florida House. He did not rise to my defense when two Florida Highway Patrol Officers and a Brevard County Sheriff's Deputy escorted me away from the mic and to the back of the room. Not a whimper.

The words that seemed to give greatest offense to the powers were "junta" and "joke" Neither of these words were curse words. I did not raise them loudly. I didn't menace, threaten or otherwise harm anyone.

Sen. Don Gaetz of Niceville who chairs the meeting, didn't like the words. That was obvious.

I knew something was up before the meeting started when a burley moustachioed fellow approached the row where I was sitting to hassle a woman who had the words "where are the maps?" on a little sheet of paper taped to her t-shirt.

He was going to ask her to remove this highly offensive sign. Indeed I found myself horrified by these brutal words and to think of the affrontery of a matronly grandmother figure, (all of five foot six, 90 pounds were she soaking wet) for wearing such a sign! In an obvious attempt to intimidate a six foot four man in a grey suit who surely weighed more than two hundred pounds. He looked into my eyes and thought better of it and "let" her keep her sign on. Nice grey eyed fellow the size of a silverback gorilla "let" the woman keep her little homemade sign.

When I got up, I started by asking the committee to raise their hands if they were republican. Three quarters of the 26 did. Less than a handful copped to being democrat. Then I pointed out the fact that by definition the committee wasn't "non-partisan" as I had looked the word up, and by composition it was obviously partisan.

I then said that I looked up another word while I was fooling with Google: Junta. A group who seize government. I said the republican party in control of our legislature meets the definition of it. I also said that at no time in history has a junta ever voluntarily given up power. And never, never have they written rules to make things fair for those outside the junta. The document that makes sure juntas don't happen, only one in history has ever so clearly been written, is the United States Constitution, from which springs the State of Florida Constitution.

I then made a point, or maybe slightly before this, that paid staffers out front told me the committee didn't have time to make a proposed map of the redistricting because the feds didn't give Florida the census data until "the last minute". "Blame the feds again, seems to be a common refrain with this group" said I. I noted that on the one hand the committee says it doesn't have demographic data, on the other, it makes the demographic data available on their own website. That the case, within ten years, there should be some sort of map to go off.

It's taken me all of five minutes to write this, I certainly wasn't going over my time of three to say it.

Now Sen. Gaetz of Niceville wanted me quiet. Mind you, this is MY county. This is MY government office. He's coming in and telling me he wants me to speed up, finish, and be quite and I am not even halfway there.

I remarked that if it's rules we should observe, there are video tapes of senators and representatives on Youtube voting for each other, two and three at a pop, up at the big house in Tallahassee: some of whom were sitting on that board, but I didn't want to point fingers or name names. So let's talk about the rules.

Continuing I remarked that there were three things relative to the redistricting hearings that spoke to bad faith: they were the time-line, the gag order, and the war chest.

The time line for the hearings, sans maps, leaves no time for the release of the information before 2012 for meaningful public comment. Confusion, of who is voting where, what the districts are and so forth. "making this hearing little more than a joke, and an expensive one at that," said I

By now the FHP folks and the deputy are surrounding me. They are standing between me and the panel, between me and the camera recording the meeting. Pointing toward the back of the room.

I managed to raise my voice and say that a Junta has taken over state government who, operating on behalf of the Koch brothers has set out to destroy public education. I also said Mike Haridopolos was given $858 per page to write a book that I can't read . I don't know why I added that last bit. There was Mike sitting there when I said it.

Much applause and some boos at this point.

I asked the officers if I had to leave the room they said no. I could remain if I remained quiet.

I was permitted to remain inside my own county administration building, where all my tax money goes. Imagine a little tear in the corner of my eye here. And a smile, they said I could remain, if I stayed quiet.

I wasn't the only speaker who found fault with, what Space Coast Progressive Alliance, called "this farce." Their representative too was nearly sat down, or sat out. He gave a wonderful dissertation that dissected the whole group, the whole "process" that I wished I had written (as I was standing there with my cadre of officers).

I have to marvel though, at two FHP officers, and a sheriff's deputy spending all day at the Viera Government Complex waiting to escort those who don't say the right thing, precisely the right wa,y to the back of the room.

Is that a wise allocation of funds? I also have to say Sen. Gaetz is not a friend of either the Florida, nor the U.S. Constitution. Not at all. And I heard not a peep of protest out of the mouths of the allegedly democratic reps and senators in this group. I suppose if I had pulled my pants down below my hips and showed my underwear I would have rated more attention from Rep. Gary Siplin of Orlando. Not a peep.

Welcome to AmericaLITE; half the rights, twice the show of force as the real America, now with a minty dash of fascism thrown in, free of charge.

We've got problems folks. Democracy is on the way out, in Florida.

CNN Body Slams Rick Scott

2011-07-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

"Why is this so difficult to understand?" demanded CNNs Ali Velshi. "Christine must have asked you this four different ways."

Velshi and his co-anchor, Christine Romans , were asking - f*cking begging - Florida's 45th governor to wrap his bald brain around one of the concepts of business "pay your bills." This is one of the basic tennants of macro and micro economics that holds everything together.

On the macro end, the US dollar is at the heart of the worldwide economy. If we don't make arrangements to pay our debts, our credit rating drops, the worldwide economy goes directly into the toilet. And the world is going to be pissed. (As much as tea mucus-plugs want to ignore the rest of the planet, it does exist.)

On the immediate micro end, at least from our national perspective, if we cut off the blood flowing to the muscle of the economy to the tune of 40 percent, markets in this country won't be able to sustain the blow either. It's the equivalent of curing a low grade fever by throwing yourself into the Bering Sea in December. Your heart stops.

No matter, our governor does what he always does: he lets logic glaze right off of him like motor oil sliding off a block of ice. And he starts spewing his dog vomit talking points, the same dog vomit he has been spewing in his campaigns against Bill McCollum and Alex Sink.

You know, go through the budget line by line. Stop spending, and fire some people.

Okay? You've borrowed money from the mafia and you've already spent it. Now the mafia is coming around to your business looking for the cash and the vig. What do you do?

You tell the wife "no Red Lobster tonight honey" and then you close the restaurant for the day until you do a complete self audit on all your expenses.

His arguments aren't even that good. We are making him sound more intelligent than he actually is.

It is clear to us now, Rick Scott is a puppet of the Koch Taliban: those people who are enemies of this country, who are bound and determined to crash the economy, and drag us into world-wide global military conflict.

They are all around us these days. They multiply like arm-gnawing zombies and they have taken over the government.

Meeting with Hillsborough Elections Officials

2011-07-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

Rick Scott Watch just spoke with Dr Earl Lennard, Hillsborough County elections supervisor, along with Tim Bobanic and Craig Latimer; Craig is chief of staff for the elections office Tim is the Director of information technology for the office located on North Fakenburg Road.

We were asking about the 38,000 rescanned votes on the evening of the general election in which Rick Scott became our governor elect.

It must be said Lennard was more than happy to meet with me without hesitation, showed me right into the office. Within a few minutes and a couple of questions he ushered me straight back to the room where the rescanning occured. He assured me that during the rescanning event - although he insisted it occured during the primary vote which gave the nomination to Scott over McCollum - the canvassing board was there to supervise, as were representitives from Dominion, voting machine vendor to the county, and a member of David Drury's staff, representing the voter systems and certifications division of the Florida Department of state

Although he did say that the canvassing board was minus a county commission chairman, but that seat was filled by a judge. So by strict letter, it wasn't exactly THE canvassing board that oversaw the rescanning event.

Mr Lennard and his staff said that one of the two Dominion machines used as the central vote tabulators malfunctioned This machine was also being used to "burn" the memory cards, ie download the voting software onto those cards. However, it malfunctioned in burning some of those cards, he said.

So, the votes on those cards from early voting didn't take, register, count. They had to open up the ballots and hand feed them back into a couple voting machines at the elections office.

Mr Lennard said - again assuring me this was during the primary and not the general election, which is incorrect - the canvassing board witnessed the event, as well as the media who were able to stand on the opposite side of a wall of windows - think of those pediatric wards where new fathers can see their babies - and watched everything.

Mr Lennard also said the entire operation was completed well before midnight. Okay, here's the link

Obviously he has the election wrong and time wrong and he frankly made me feel like I was losing my mind, for a minute as he insisted this all happened during the primary not the election.

Intersting points: Mr: Bobanic said that while Hillsborough/Dominion/Preimeier still are using GEMS software which was hacked and shown to have the capability of voting backwards, the software was updated in 2009.

Again the interview with these gentlemen lasted more than thirty minutes. They said that not all the memory cards were affected by the malfuctioning machine, only some of them

The machine was sent to Dominion voting systems for tests but to-date there are no answers from them, they said as to why or how the machine "malfunctioned".

Interesting findings from this interview: there are no Florida statutes mandating a standardized method to" rescan voter ballots". Each county comes up with its own proceedure for doing so, sends it off to department of state for review and approval.

That is to say, the law hasn't caught up with the technology, or flaws in the systems of electronic voting. Which as we have stated makes this" Rescanning" a loophole which could be exploited to steal an election.

"If there is some other way to handle a situation like this that is better, I am all for hearing about it," said Lennard.

Mr Lennard said his office has confidence in the machines by Dominion, however no system is 100 percent fool proof. He used the example of the first day of school (in that he was a super for public schools for many years) No system is foolproof.

He and his staff said the ballots are always either in custody of elections officials or kept under lock and key and 24 hour video survellaince

Another interesting fact: The software for the machines is sent down to the counties from the department of state in a CD. The department of state handles it, sending it to the elections offices. Vendor, DOS, elections supervisor. Three people run the election. One CD file controls it in every county. When there is a screw up, the vendor seems to have as much input to the review of the situation as the elections supervisor, the department of state and the canvassing board if not more so. Conceivably an operative in the department of state working with someone inside the voting machine company could screw up an election without the election supervisor or his staff knowing about it.

These officials seemingly had no knowlegde of the 2000 election flaws in GEMs software which counted votes backwards in the Gore v Bush race.

Mr Bobanic gave a quizzical stare when asked point blank whether the GEMS software had been fixed "it can't count votes backwards, or apply a negative vote total anymore can it?"

He made no answer concerning the "Hursti Hack" which demostrated the flaw and is now common knowlege among IT/electronic voting experts.

Mr Lennard was also asked about his current status as an elections supervisor In 2009 Sec Browning said Mr Lennard would serve only until the 2010 election. I asked him why he is still in office now He said he ran for his office "unopposed" and was elected, but will only serve until 2012 and will not seek reelection.

Overall impressions were there is nothing presented to me to indicate something suspicious DIDN'T happen in the Hillsborough County elections office during election night Nov 2, 2010.

The Rickick Wants you to Submit to the Underverse

2011-07-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Rick Scott was giving us signals of his style before he was elected

2011-07-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

Came across this one in my research. His meeting with CNN’s Kiran Chetry he was on point and on message back in September.

Here's the link from YouTube. You should try to catch this if you can.

Chetry: “Why would you want the job of CEO of Florida?”

Scott: “I lived the American dream. I started out in public housing…My father was a truck driver and back then truck drivers got laid off a lot. I know what it’s like to be unemployed, having parents unemployed, and I’ve lived the American Dream.

“I want that same dream for my daughters, my son in law and everybody in Florida,” he said.[i]

Sometimes people can’t help but to answer honestly. This rare glimpse into the subconscious mind used to be called a “Freudian slip.”

His dream apparently is to stick it to everyone: so that every kid coming up now, can experience the spine-strengthening joy of having parents mostly unemployed, while the family is crammed together in low-income housing.

Oh the bliss of renting rather than owning, and living hand-to-mouth, while being shuffled along with the economic currents like a gypsy, by the whims of the wealthy and the powerful.

Such joy to provide such a childhood, for everybody else!

Ricky’s world is reminiscent of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The peasantry is seen groveling in the mud as they self narrate happily, ”grovel, grovel, grovel; all day long.”

Why certainly it’s a plutocrat’s wet dream that we should all so happily grovel.

Yeah. Okay? Sounds like a dream alright, as wished upon us by the Chinese government bent on punishing us for our evil capitalist ways, that is.

Thanks but no thanks, Governor Rick. Or should we say GOVERNOR MAO!?

During the interview he was again asked about Columbia/HCA and Medicare Fraud.

Chetry, exhibiting the muted, corporate FOXLite kindness that is endearing itself ever-so, to the likes of Job Stewart, actually called Rick’s red-headed step child, Columbia/HCA “a little bit of baggage there.”

“A little bit of baggage”? Yeah? A “little?” Maybe you could get Uncle Ricky a pair of slippers and some warm cocoa too? Wouldn’t that be nice?

But he had obviously learned a valuable lesson from watching NFL: running out the clock.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t answer: just burn out the clock.

He has a canned response that lasts almost a full minute ready to go and all of us are now familiar with it. He now uses it everywhere.

Here’s why it works on television: In a morning show like this one, where news is pancaked between the Priceline adverts and the car commercials, Chetry has just six minutes to get these questions in.

So, Ricky runs out the clock. Nearly 20 percent of the interview, we listened to something that sounded like this:

“Well, you know what I tell people is, when you’re the CEO of a company you have to take responsibility for everything that happens. That company made mistakes and so, I take responsibility. That’s the difference between a business person and a politician. A business person takes responsibility when things go poorly. You know you have to show up and fix things.”

It’s pure, brilliant gibberish. It means nothing. It certainly doesn’t mean “I take responsibility.” What he’s really saying is, “someone else did this.”

He’s doing the thing many masters of corporate-speak do, he’s “taking ownership,” (wink) otherwise known as “soft-owning” massive mistakes; that can cover fraud, tanking the economy, pollution, wrongful death, oil spills, you name it. It’s all the rage. CEOs everywhere are doing it these days, they are soft-owning it, paying the tab, nodding, and winking to congress, kicking the dog, leaving the light on, and walking away, buddy. Elvis has left the building.

Much the way BP’s CEO Tony Hayward “took ownership” of the BP oil spill. Remember?

“It’s not our accident but we take full responsibility. We will clean the spill,” he said back in May 2010.[ii]

Garbage. It also turned out to be a lie.

Rick’s learned from the best. And watching NFL on the weekends obviously taught him how to run out the clock.

Even though he ran his canned one-minute response covering Columbia/HCA, and said the one-second word “jobs” no less than 21 times in a six minute interview - sometimes stringing the “jobs” together like a tail-gunner, as in “jobs, jobs, jobs…I build private sector jobs” - Chetry still had time for a couple more questions.

One was about a republican ad, ball-peeing Scott’s new competitor, Alex Sink.

The ad, which rated a “barely-true” by Politifact, said Alex Sink invested the state’s employee pension fund unwisely and “lost $24 billion.”

Reverberating Politifact’s findings, she said Sink was part of a team who made those investment decisions. Chetry didn’t even mention the fact that the market murdered all our pension funds and yet no one person was ever held to account.

Well and good enough for Rick to do the corporate thing and soft-own the mistakes of others, or Wall Street billionaires taking TARP, he wasn’t going to let Sink get away from her mistakes. He wasn’t going to her slip off this hook, as easily as he slipped off of his own, with a $300 million parachute.

Oh no! Her crimes were simply unforgiveable, and he said so.

“She was told by auditors multiple times the investments were way to risky,” he said. “That should never have happened. She’s the chief financial officer of the state. She’s responsible for this. She lost $24 billion of pension money for Floridians. That’s a big problem.”

What’s interesting here is, in this context, state workers are “Floridians.” But when it comes time to get rid of them they become hated “government jobs,” which have to be eliminated in order to “grow the economy.”

The mutable, slippery truth of Ricky-world.

Anyway, food for thought. Here's to hoping big media like CNN and MSNBC can open up more in the way of time slots to cover news sometime soon. I have often wondered why, if there are so many companies wanting to advertise, they can't just double the ad rates and open up more air time so there is some value to be gained from watching the news?

More food for thought.

[i] “Rick Scott Interview AM” CNN Sept. 27, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNwZ-SMVlt4&NR=1

[ii] “BP CEO: Not our accident” The Raw Story May 3, 2010. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/05/03/bp-ceo-its-not-our-spill/

More Casey's More Caylee's in Rick Scott's New Florida

2011-07-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's time to politicize the Casey Anthony Trial here at Rick Scott Watch. It is. Sorry. It must be done.

If we think something this bad can happen during Charlie Crist's watch, imagine what is going to happen if we continue on the path Rick Scott is leading us down.

If you kill education, you get more kids without skills to handle life, sex, and babies. More Caseys.

The state provided the evidence and she was aquitted of murder. Fact. The state did a good job, but they didn't have enough evidence to convict her. Fact.

Bitch, moan, scream. Get angry at the jurors from Pinellas County.

Now come on back to earth for a minute. We have a justice system that DEMANDS an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to support the guilt of an accused party beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the deal, the raw freaking deal here in these United States since before there was a United States. Since John Adams got six guardsmen off of murder and massacre charges for standing their ground and doing their job at the Boston Massacre, back in the day. This is how we do it.

Don't stay mad at 12 good fellow citizens of our state who saw their duty and did it. Just grow up.

This story is why you can't run the state like a business. The job of a governor is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. To protect the little Caylees. Not say "sorry for you luck kid."

You stood outside. You carried your sign in support for that little child seeking justice for her. You can't save her now. But you might save another.

1,800 workers were cut from the ranks of the Department of Children and Families in this budget our governor released at a Tea Party Enclave. These caseworkers step in and attempt to help families in crisis. Now they can't. They weren't necessary in Governor Rick's new Florida. That means more families like the Anthony's will slip through the cracks. More Caylee's, more Casey's coming down the pike.

He cut as many as 1,690 from the state department of corrections, and we'll get to that when we talk about Gain Time.

Casey lied to the police four times in their hunt for little Caylee. Each lie delayed the police who already are understaffed and over-worked. Each lie, if the mother had been innocent, cost valuable time wherein they might have found that little girl sooner, in whatever state she was in.

Each lie represented a year's sentence for Casey after the verdicts were rendered. A year in jail for each count. She received a sentence today of four years. But time-served awaiting trial, as well all know, is three years. And now we have this animal called "Gain Time" as well that shaves off time from the end of her sentence.

Gain Time is a little mathmatical guizmo that cuts days off your sentence for being good, and solitary confinement provides few opportunities to be bad. We know it's true. The t.v. lawyer said so. Orange County Corrections is a crowded place. Crowded also has to do with a ratio of officers to inmates. That's where the gain time comes in. They have to keep that ratio at a manageble level otherwise, riots and chaos rule the day. You get 11 days, nearly half a month in Gain Time, for every month served without any issues in Orange County Corrections.

So Casey gets out next week.

Listen, Karma does not forget. She always comes calling. She may be late but she's never sleepy. Forget Casey, put your hands down, put your weapons down. Karma will sort her out, if there is sorting to be done.

What of the next Caylee?

Here's the deal. We just now spoke of overworked detectives, crowded prisons, lack of evidence, lack of man hours. We spoke of reduced caseworkers to the Department of Children and Families.

In His Majesty's hybridized version of America, where cash is king, where losers walk, where corporations pay no property taxes ever; where necessary state workers get fired the way fish mongers throw mullet, where staffing reductions force fewer corrections officers to control more inmates; where the Gain Time is so high, every day served equals two days off your sentence; what do you think this is coming to?

More Caylees. Hundreds more. So many more we will look back on this and smile fondly when we got so worked up over the death of one small child; where we will laugh at how naive we were back then when we cared about little human beings. Back during the early days of Rick Scott's rule.

The signs you carry for Caylee must be forged anew. You must re-write the signs. We must put a stop to Rick Scott and his criminal goon squad and their dangerous cuts to our services. You must keep up, get fed up, stand up, and act up.

Rather than let corporations off Scott-free from the shared burden of plugging the budget holes, rather than firing more cops, more corrections officers, more teachers, more salary reductions to those who provide crucial services, we have to re-introduce some sanity into the equation.

"No more teachers, no more cops; take the taxes from the top."

Get used to saying that. That's how you "keep up". Protest. That's how you "stand up" and "act up."

Florida LOOTO and Bright Futures Scholars

2011-07-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Lotto sales are way up, surpassing $4 Billion in fiscal 2011. This is expected in a down market. Lotto, cigarettes and beer. That's what a nervous mass of people who are about to lose their damn jobs buy. It's no great mystery.

Nevermind logic, reason, and even empirical evidence. A couple of months ago, major papers began shilling for the garbage story that our lotto system was broken and so, we need to revamp the lotto-funded Bright Futures Scholars Program or get rid of it. As in YESTERDAY! Fire drill! Fire drill! Everybody panic! KILL KILL KILL, SLASH SLASH!

Witness this little gem April 3, in the Miami Herald. Without the benefit of the first shred of data, the writer of this piece of awful suggested that lotto sales were flat. And so, as night follows day, we must must must (don't you get it? We MUST) scrap the Bright Futures Scholars program. Or tweak it, to make sure it's "going to the right people". i.e. the poorest of the poor, where apparently there are no scholarships. Of course the contract entered into between students and state has long been a simple one. You do the work, you get the grades, you get the scholarship. Easy.

Here is another piece of dog-vomit from Miami Herald on the subject that alleges "lotto proceeds have not kept pace" with needs of the scholarship fund. Again, no evidence in the form of those wonderful things called facts and figures to support this assertion.

A solid guess? The controversy seems to originate from this absolutely horrid legislator from Port Orange Evelyn J. Lynn, who is likely directed by people-hating senior state senator John Thrasher.

Lynn, chairs the higher education appropriations subcommittee. In March, you may recall Lynn suggested that Florida's Prepaid College Plan - this isn't a "handout" either! This is where people 'prepay' into a tuition fund!! - be suspended. Drawing from a vast reservoiur of anti-knowledge, she postulated that the program may become insolvent since it was tied to the stock market. Only, dundering Dora didn't do the first bit of research on the matter before opening her gob, because IT ISN'T!! AT ALL! Not one red cent is attached to the stock market!!! No, No, no.

"Oh fidddle de dee," said she and promptly coitus interrupted her attempted fornication of the public, when this rock of salience was thrown at her iron-cast head. Leave it to a garden-clubbing, Lincoln Day Dining, Maritini Party, silver haired, intolerant former beauty queen with an "I hate you" smile, to toss this off so casually without offering the first explanation for her own stupidity. AND DID WE MENTION SHE CHAIRS higher education APPROPRIATIONS subcommittee?

Well don't you know nasty pants is going after Bright Futures now. Under the guise of protecting it, the idea would be to increase the requirements. And of course, she will be back next year to bump those up again. All these changes of course, without the first shred of evidence that they are necessary.

As we speak, and in response to the agenda-driven, self-derived story of Bright Futures should be curbed, tabled, tweak, screwed, studies are now being undertaken to "get to the bottom" of the question "does Bright Futures work?"

Work? Define "work" i.e. to function properly? They can't and they won't. Because it isn't about "working". This is about class warfare. It's about looting the lotto. Soon to be called The Florida LOOTO. Guess who will do the looting? The Florida Legislature and Rick Scott.

Rick Scott and the legislature pulled two, quick, crisis managment fast ones on the students of Florida with the administration of this program. They reduced the pay-out per credit hour from $120 to $108. Then they went "oh, but wait, we haven't hurt the students and parents of Florida enough with that move. We need to find another rusty oyster fork to stick in their eye." And so they raised the cost of state tuition.

You pay your water bill every month. Without fail. "No no. Not good enough. To penalize you for doing that, we will cut the flow rate in half, and triple the price of the water. There. How's that feel? Oh, we also had the meter reader poison your dog while he was in your yard. M'kay?"

The deal was, a program designed to send the MAXIMUM through-put possible TO THE STUDENTS OF FLORIDA. This is WHY we voted on having a lotto in the state in the first place. "Pink Slip" Rick might not recall this because he was too busy bilking seniors and veterans benefits from Tricare and Medicare when all this happened. But, I was living here when Lotto was voted on. And the concern then was, technically lotto is gambling and we had laws against it. Legislators agreed that in this one special case, when the aim was to serve the students and hard-working families of Florida - a "right to fire your ass anytime they feel like it" state - with a program that offered a "bright future" to those willing, able and motivated students WHO WORKED FOR IT.

No no. You're missing the point. The point of Ricky-World, is to shut off opportunities of those same hard working familes to send their kids to college, and to stamp out motivation in public education, to kill initiative and drive of young enterprising students in public schools who might just work themselves out of the grind their parents spent their whole lives just to keep their heads above water here, while sending their kids to school, athletic events, and providing an enriching environment where HOMEWORK and STUDY were encouraged.

Remember THIS PROGRAM IS FUNDED BY LOTTO MONEY. It isn't a HAND-OUT from TAXES as the popular myth goes.

Now, you have to really look at it: Lotto sales go up! But they've cut the supply of the money to the muscle all of it was supposed to go to. They provide a third twist to the valve by upping the requirements. They provided not one shred of data that lotto funding was tight in the first place, that lotto sales were down. Once again! It's not tied to revenue from taxes! It's tied to people trying something, hell, ANYTHING, to save themselves financially from this mess republicans and greed heads on Wall Street created in the first place!

No. Not one shred of data that lotto wasn't working and now we have evidence that the exact opposite is true.

So, where is that extra money from these shaving going to go? What will that money be doing now that it ISN'T being directed to the very place it was designed to go in the first place?

Who knows? And the bought-and-paid-for media isn't going to ask.

In sum, we have bald-faced evidence that this program of plundering the lotto is nothing more than another example of attacking and killing the hopes and dreams of middle and poorer economic class working Floridians, and robbing the coffers of the state for whatever nefarious purposes these cretinous leeches - naming names now: Rick Scott, Dean Cannon, Mikey Haridopolos, John Thrasher, Evelyn Lynn - deem fit.

A criminal corporate cabal is in control of your government here in Florida. Their mission is to kill the hopes of your children, enrich themselves while driving as many of us from the state as possible.

You are to be replaced with mechanical golf ball washers, greens, and fairways. You and your children are no longer welcome here. Personae non gratti. You're no longer deemed worthy to stand in your own state.

Bright Futures Must die, so that the rich can plunder our lucrative state lotto.

Now what the hell are you going to do about it?