Hallandale Beach Blog: Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM

Hallandale Beach Blog

Entering Broward County, Florida. Trust me when I tell you, this is NOT the Land of Lincoln. Above, a road sign on north-bound U.S.-1/South Federal Highway at the Broward County-Miami-Dade County line back in January 2007, when I started this blog. Pictured left-to-right, Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino in center, Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, and The Beach Club condos. Hallandale Beach, FL; photo by South Beach Hoosier.

A common-sense public policy overview offering a critical perspective on the current events, economics, government, politics and culture of South Florida, in particular, the cities of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood, and Broward and Miami-Dade County.

I also ruminate on the antics and activities of the rest of the Sunshine State, the nation and the world here, as well as the interplay of politics and media, public policy, aspects of the pop culture and entertainment industry as well as the past and current South Florida sports scene, with emphasis on the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins, Baltimore Orioles, University of Miami Hurricanes, and the Indiana University Hoosiers.

My hope is that the added insight, analysis or context on the news that I can share with you here helps you draw your own conclusions about what's at stake or going-on, free of the MSM's longstanding bias towards Conventional Wisdom, whether in its coverage of politics, government, sports or the entertainment industry.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Newt Gingrich's delicious win in South Carolina will soon flood Florida with Beltway reporters who will ask hard questions about state's Romney-loving GOP Establishment -unlike FL's own MSM

Winning Our Future video: Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins: Mitt Romney Wasn't Conservative Until He Ran For President. January 21, 2012.
http://youtu.be/qvM64Wl5yNo

Being a Newt Gingrich supporter who expected last night's result- and who predicted as much to many of you weeks ago in emails- and feeling and thinking as I do, I can hardly wait until we start seeing something that's been strangely missing from campaign coverage in Florida.

What's been MIA are fact-filled articles and columns in Florida newspapers, segments on evening network TV newscasts, and pithy posts on knowing nationally-read blogs, on what Florida's GOP Establishment of elected officials and pooh-bahs who endorsed John Huntsman and Rick Perry for president -or desperately wished for Jeb Bush!- are going to be doing over the next ten days to try to rehabilitate their greatly-damaged reputation and image within the state, given how badly that has worked out for some of them.

Especially some of the unctuous ones I, well, personally dislike, many of whom have that whole Silver Spoon thing going on that makes them seem even more phony and detached from reality than you-know-who.

Will they now suck-up to and salute the GOP Beltway/Northeast Establishment and now support Mitt Romney?
Well, what do you think?!!!

And speaking of Silver Spoons, or more factually, Sons of Silver Spoons, when are we going to start seeing some in-depth newspaper articles and columns in the Miami Herald, Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Tallahassee Democrat, Orlando Sentinel -i.e. the Florida Mainstream Media that creates the state's Conventional Wisdom out of froth that's so often wrong- on what Mitt Romney supporters like Lighter-than-Lite Connie Mack the Quatro are going to ACTUALLY DO to turn around Romney's slumping prospects here?

No, not what his father, the former Florida Senator with the same name will strongly suggest, what will the young U.S. Senate wannabe Quatro himself DO?

You know, something concrete and tangible to prove that they are not all just well-known drones in the state's not-too-bright and all-too self-serving political hype machine that is also Home Sweet Home along the I-4 Corridor?
Something besides just recommending that he spend more money on ads?
Hmm-m...

(I mean, if Mack's really that formidable a candidate, and those polls numbers we've seen for weeks aren't just name ID numbers, as I've always argued they were, we ought to start seeing something from him right away, right?
And not just in the usual places?!
Me, well, as you know from my past posts, I think Mack has a glass jaw and I will NOT vote for him. I greatly prefer Adam Hasner hands down.)

Some of us will be watching very, very carefully.

The state's journos better figure it out damn quick, because with a few exceptions I can name, it's crystal clear that the vast majority of Florida-based TV and print reporters WONT suddenly develop a spine and become responsible.

WON'T be forthright enough to question the previously-swallowed Conventional Wisdom of the Romney "Inevitability" argument," or write articles that dare to ask in their headlines "Can Connie Mack IV actually help deliver Florida for Romney, or will he fail?," there is a veritable army of print and TV reporters based in the Beltway and the Northeast U.S. that are about to start invading the Sunshine State on Monday morning to do just that, and ask questions the state's journos have largely refused to ask, despite the fact that it's low-hanging fruit indeed.

And if you think the Beltway/Northeast MSM won't take advantage of the chance to get away from cold weather for a week, forget it...

Excerpt from the iconic early 1980's Florida Dept. of Tourism TV ad - "When You Need It Bad We've Got It Good"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxB0kjqO6SI

Old-style tourism ad rules!!

This was by far the most-successful tourism campaign for the state ever.
When I was attending IU, there wasn't anyone I knew there who didn't know this ad and who couldn't sing or hum the jingle.

Which, naturally enough, leads to this classic that was marketing genius...
every week.

CBS-TV's The Jackie Gleason Show -open (color, late 1960's)
http://youtu.be/E4b_-iwJwic
Yes, back when South Florida seemed magical and sophisticated to 7-year old me living in Memphis!

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HBO's "Game Change" film about Sarah Palin, starring Julianne Moore, premieres Saturday March 10th

Trailer

Jay Roach, the director of "Game Change," said on PBS' Charlie Rose Show on March 5th that after seeing the entire film in previews in liberal bastions of the country, even critics of Sarah Palin came away with a much-better understanding of the complex and almost-impossible situation that she was put into during the 2008 campaign. That may or may not be true, but the curious thing to me is that the trailer for the film, which is appearing as an ad on many news websites I go to everyday, seems to have been cut with a very different purpose, and seems to be geared for people who want to laugh at Palin and see her have a meltdown. I know, I know, consider the source. Given that it's on HBO, it isn't really surprising, is it?. HBO Films -Game Change. Premieres March 10 at 9 p.m., starring Julianne Moore, Ed Harris and Woody Harrelson, directed by Jay Roach http://www.hbo.com/movies/game-change

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Hallandale Beach Blog is where I try to inject or superimpose a degree of accountability, transparency and insight onto Florida and local Broward County government and public policy issues, which I feel is sorely lacking in local media now. On this blog, locally, I concentrate my energy, enthusiasm, anger and laser-like attention on the coastal cities of Hallandale Beach and Hollywood.

If you lived in this part of South Florida, you'd ALREADY be stuck in stultifying traffic, paying higher-than-necessary taxes and continually musing about the chronic lack of accountability among not only elected govt. officials, but also of city, county and state employees as well. Collectively, with a few rare exceptions, they couldn't be farther from the sort of strong results-oriented, eager work-ethic mentality that local residents deserve and expect.

This is particularly true in the town I live in, the City of Hallandale Beach, just north of Aventura and south of Hollywood. There, the "Perfect Storm" of years of apathy, incompetency and cronyism are all too readily apparent.
Sadly for its residents, HB is where even easily-solved, quality-of-life problems are left to fester for YEARS on end, because of myopia, lack of common sense and ineffective supervisory management. It's a city with lots of potential because of its terrific location, yet its citizens have become numb to its outrages and screw-ups after years of the worst kind of mismanagement and lack of foresight. On a daily basis, they wake up and see the same old problems that have never being adequately resolved by the city in a logical and responsible fashion, merely kicked -once again- further down the road.

I used to ask myself, not always rhetorically, "Where are all the enterprising young reporters who want to show that through their own hard work and enterprise, what REAL investigative reporting can produce?" Hearing no response, I decided to start a blog that could do some of these things, taking the p.o.v. of a reasonable but skeptical person seeing the situation for the first time, and wanting questions answered in a honest and logical way that citizens have the right to expect.

Hallandale Beach Blog intends to be a catalyst for positive change.

If there's one constant gripe in South Florida, regardless of your age, race, nationality or political persuasion, it's about the fundamental lack of PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY here among Florida's state, regional and local govt./agency officials. Hallandale Beach Blog aims to be a small step towards regaining some of that needed accountability, whether it's thru simple public scrutiny, or requires a degree of follow-up investigation and public exposure of incompetency, cronyism or simple negligence -South Florida's usual governing style.

"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."- Preacher Purl encouraging the underdog Hickory High basketball team before the state title game against heavily-favored South Bend Central in 1986's Hoosiers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/

Audio of pregame speech:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechhoosiersfinal.html

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The South Florida I Grew Up In

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The South Florida I Grew Up In
Excerpted from Joan Didion's Miami, 1987, Simon & Schuster: In the continuing opera still called, even by Cubans who have now lived the largest part of their lives in this country, el exilo, the exile, meetings at private homes in Miami Beach are seen to have consequences. The actions of individuals are seen to affect events directly. Revolutions and counter-revolutions are framed in the private sector, and the state security apparatus exists exclusively to be enlisted by one or another private player. That this particular political style, indigenous to the Caribbean and to Central America, has now been naturalized in the United States is one reason why, on the flat coastal swamps of South Florida, where the palmettos once blew over the detritus of a dozen failed booms and the hotels were boarded up six months a year, there has evolved since the early New Year's morning in 1959 when Fulgencio Batista flew for the last time out of Havana a settlement of considerable interest, not exactly an American city as American cities have until recently been understood but a tropical capital: long on rumor, short on memory, overbuilt on the chimera of runaway money and referring not to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Atlanta but to Caracas and Mexico, to Havana and to Bogota and to Paris and Madrid. Of American cities Miami has since 1959 connected only to Washington, which is the peculiarity of both places, and increasingly the warp...

"The general wildness, the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked and apparently neverending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps... Here I am then in the Floridas, thought I," John James Audobon wrote to the editor of The Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science during the course of an 1831 foray in the territory then still called the Floridas. The place came first, and to touch down there is to begin to understand why at least six administrations now have found South Florida so fecund a colony. I never passed through security for a flight to Miami without experiencing a certain weightlessness, the heightened wariness of having left the developed world for a more fluid atmosphere, one in which the native distrust of extreme possibilities that tended to ground the temperate United States in an obeisance to democratic institutions seemed rooted, if at all, only shallowly. At the gate for such flights the preferred language was already Spanish. Delays were explained by weather in Panama. The very names of the scheduled destinations suggested a world in which many evangelical inclinations had historically been accommodated, many yearnings toward empire indulged...

In this mood Miami seemed not a city at all but a tale, a romance of the tropics, a kind of waking dream in which any possibility could and would be accommodated...
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The Lawton Chiles Trail

The Lawton Chiles Trail sign on south-bound U.S.-1 at Broward County/Miami-Dade countyline. Lawton Chiles was a great and humble man, blessed with an optimistic spirit, a tireless work-ethic and unquestioned integrity. I first met and campaigned with in 1976 during his first Senate re-election battle. We talked as we walked up to one NMB house after another -not too far from the county Carter-Mondale HQ in NMB I worked at- greeting lots of surprised voters, as we took turns ringing doorbells, all under the watchful eye of a film crew from Channel 7/WSVN. Over the years, both before and after I moved to the Washington, D.C. area from South Florida, I was fortunate enough to talk to him from time-to-time and get the benefit of his advice and wisdom, as well as enjoy the warm hospitality of The Florida House, across from The Supreme Court. That was the brilliant idea of his wonderful wife, Rhea, with whom he worked tirelessly to make it a reality for visiting Floridians. For more info, see http://floridaembassy.com/ June 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago

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Hallandale Beach in The Miami Herald over 25 years ago
"For years people living in and out of its condo-walled sector east of U.S. 1 have wondered what to do about the city of Hallandale. In the 19th Century the condo giants would have served as ideal fortresses. From top floors of the towers, enemy ships could be readily spotted and blown out of the Atlantic. Oceanfront dwellers could have been protected from the west by the Hallandale Beach Boulevard drawbridge and moat called the Intracoastal Waterway. But this is the 20th Century..."

-Miami Herald Broward Columnist Bill Braucher's first paragraph from July 24, 1983.
To which Hallandale Beach Blog can only say, Bulls-eye!

Hallandale Beach Water Tower on A1A/South Ocean Drive

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"

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"Laws and Constitutions go for nothing where the general sentiment is corrupt."
-New York Times, September 22, 1851

"Why do they need that in the Broward County charter?"
-Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper at April 2, 2008 HB City Commission meeting, in discussing possible inclusion of Broward County Charter Review Commission's proposal for Ethics Commission to deal with Broward County Commission, on November 2008 ballot.

Six YEARS after the county's voters had overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the County charter requiring its adoption, the Broward County Commission had yet to live up to its legal responsibility. That's why!

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Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is

Corruption Isn't Unique to South Florida, It's the Level of the Stupidity That Is
"[Chicago Mayor] William Hale Thompson was defeated Tuesday after a campaign which he alone made disgraceful. The election was an ejection, a dirty job, but Chicago has washed itself and put on clean clothes. Thompson recognized the [Chicago] Tribune as his chief enemy. The Tribune was glad to earn that opinion. It certainly tried to do so. It has taken the fight to him on every occasion during the long and depraved course of his administration. It is unpleasant business to eject a skunk, but someone has to do it.
For Chicago, Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy. He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character. He’s out.
He is not only out, but dishonored. He is deserted by his friends. He is permanently marked by the evidences of his character and conduct. His health is impaired by his ways of life and he leaves office and goes from the city the most discredited man who ever held place in it."

-Excerpts from April 1931 Chicago Tribune editorial following Republican "Big Bill" Thompson's loss to his Democratic rival Anton Cermak. A friend of organized crime during the Al Capone era, Thompson was the last Republican elected mayor of Chicago.
But less than two years later, Mayor Cermak was shot while shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Miami's Bayfront Park. He died from gunshot wounds to his lungs three weeks later.

See http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3686.html

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager Mike Good

Political Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Lies of Mayor Joy Cooper and former City Manager Mike Good. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier, This photo was taken just days before the Air Supply fundraising/concert on the beach, as Hallandale Beach DPW employees try to make the area "appear" to be well-maintained -when in reality, it hadn't been properly maintained -and thus fool HB taxpayers and visitors alike. This building underneath the city's iconic Water Tower, just steps from both the Atlantic Ocean and State Road A1A, was given to the City of Hallandale Beach for free by The Related Group on August 3rd, 2007, and yet STILL remained OFF-LIMITS to everyday HB citizens, taxpayers and residents, the true "owners" of the building, until July of 2010, 35 MONTHS later. As of November 25, 2011, there hasn't been a single public forum held by the city dedicated to gauging how citizens want to utilize it best. That's because the community wants to actually use THEIR facility, while the city prefers keeping it locked-up. Even worse, the building remains a veritable clubhouse for the cronies and pals of HB City Hall's elected officials and city employees, who get to use it for free. And for many separate periods of time, often six months, the city couldn't even manage to keep an American flag on the city flagpole next to the fountain? Once again, HB City Hall shows their gross incompetency by being unable to manage something as simple as keeping a flag flying. Pathetic!

A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL

City of Hallandale Beach Municipal Complex: A fish rots from the head down, and so does local government in Broward County, FL. This monument sign on U.S.-1 and S.E. 5th Street, across from Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex, alerts you to your proximity to way from the HB City Hall and Police Department. It's a government that by their words and actions has given taxpayers every impression of holding itself apart and above from the citizens it's supposed to serve, often acting like they don't have to follow the laws that govern everyone else in the state of Florida and the U.S., whether of logic and reason, contracts, or, more to the point for this blog, the Florida Statutes on Sunshine Laws and Public Records. City employees in Hallandale Beach routinely refuse to answer reasonable questions posed to them by resident taxpayers, and as I have found out myself, often berated you for even having the nerve to ask! Comm. Dotty Ross has a solid record for her put-downs of the public even before they speak. As it happens, it's also not a very safe area, despite who's supposed to be there, and in the past few years, the public parking lots have been pitch black for 6-9 months at a time, even next to the Police Dept. HQ. The then-Police Chief just shrugged his shoulders, even at City Comm. meetings. As if they couldn't make a worse first impression, at one point, even the lights on this sign didn't work at night for over FOUR YEARS, either. March 3, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Hallandale Beach. Actually, it's a city of gross incompetency, red-tape & myopia

Hallandale Beach, City of Choice. The sign that greets northbound drivers on U.S.-1/South Federal Hwy. as they leave the City of Aventura and Miami-Dade County in the rear window; one of the three main streets into Hallandale Beach. Unfortunately, it's the perfect metaphor for the City of Hallandale Beach and its elected officials and employees: short-sighted and lacking in common sense. This sign was originally placed so far west on the median strip -and practically BEHIND a palm tree- that drivers can't actually read it even if they wanted to. In any case, because of the longtime gross incompetency and negligence of the city, the spotlights that are supposed to illuminate the sign at night HAVEN'T worked since about mid-January of 2004. Which is to say, yes, LONGER than the U.S.'s involvement in WW II. Welcome to the City of Hallandale Beach! Begin heavy traffic, chronic red tape and mis-adventures in government! Hallandale Beach, FL; Original photo here was taken January 2007; this one taken May 8, 2008; photo by South Beach Hoosier. The three palm trees that had been in front of it on the median are gone, so now you can REALLY notice that it DOESN'T work! February 2009 update: In order to make room for a left-turning lane at S.E. 5th Street into The Village of Gulfstream retail complex, the 'invisible' sign was removed and placed farther north. As of March 6th, 2012, the lights on this sign STILL don't work! In fact, the light fixtures have been gone for months. Yet another sign of the ruinous reign of Mayor Joy Cooper and City Manager's Mike Good & Mark A. Antonio. No attention to detail!

Crown Princess Victoria's moving speech to the Swedish people

Crown Princess Victoria's speech to the Swedish people - Victorias Tal till Svenska Folket på Bröllopet 19 juni 2010. Her short but moving speech that had people laughing -and crying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtoLtHKLD5k Victoria's comments: Kära, kära vänner,jag vill börja med att tacka svenska folket för att ni har gett mig min prins. Vi, min make och jag, är så otroligt glada och väldigt tacksamma för att så många vill vara här och fira tillsammans med oss. Det är en enorm upplevelse, det är vår absolut största dag hittills i vårt liv. Att känna ert stöd betyder mer för oss än ni någonsin skulle kunna förstå. Det är något otroligt. Idag är en dag som vi kommer att bära med oss i våra hjärtan för resten av vårt liv. Tack! My June 20th post on Crown Princess Victoria's wedding and ceremonies was http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-her-big-day-crown-princess-victoria.html SVT video of det kungliga bröllopet are at: http://svt.se/2.125172/det_kungliga_brollopet

Fabulous! Deconstructing fame and film industry thru the prism of actress who personifies sexy

Blogger and Internet guru iJustine's photoshoot for Maxim magazine; Justine Ezarik

iJustine photoshoot for Maxim magazine; Blogger and Internet guru Justine Ezarik http://youtu.be/YLKU4tkWH2s Photos at: http://www.maxim.com/amg/girls/girls-of-maxim/91021/ijustine.html Justine Ezarik's media portfolio consists of the following portals: ijustine.com, twitter.com/ijustine, youtube.com/ijustine, youtube.com/otherijustine, youtube.com/ijustinereviews youtube.com/ijustinesiphone, youtube.com/ijustinegaming, ijustine.spreadshirt.com, dailybooth.com/ijustine, facebook.com/ijustine, myspace.com/ijustine