Showing posts with label Alex Leary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alex Leary. Show all posts

Monday, June 24, 2013

Prescient blogger Mickey Kaus is reading my mind again: "Psst, @SenMarcoRubio: Don't even bother showing up in Iowa"; "Pew shows blacks favor "enforcement first" approach--way off the Dem reservation on that, basically in line w/ GOPs"; Meanwhile The Hill reports "Schumer predicts mass demonstrations if House blocks path to citizenship"; pro-amnesty Miami Herald goes an entire week without publishing anything critical of immigration bill they favor











Whatever you do, don't wake-up FL-24 Rep. Frederica Wilson and tell her that last bit of news. She doesn't want to have to say anything about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill until after she gets her talking points from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  

More Mickey at http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

Here's some more of what you WON'T be reading about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week, or seeing presented fairly on newscasts of CBS4, NBC6, 7News or Local10 News at 6 and 11 p.m. 
And what you WON'T be reading about any of the various amendments or fig-leafs that will never be enforced.

Not that the smart readers among you didn't already know this, or haven't since connected the dots over the past week after realizing how truly unprofessional the Miami Herald and its management and editors have been by having a news blackout on the Ryan Lizza column and Rubio and Alex Conant.
But for the rest of you, do you not see how the local South Florida press corps is completely snowing you, and almost daring you to call them on what they've done.

Try to find the words Lizza, Corker or Hoeven on these websites for May or June of 2013 re immigration, especially written by a local reporter.
Nice and thorough, Miami-style: nothing.
It's like they did a body-dump by driving out to the Everglades and dropped the facts into the swamp, assuming the gators would eat all the evidence.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/

Local10, http://www.local10.com/ is the only one of the four with anything to speak of, and none of what appears there is local, just written AP dispatches.
So none of it was ever actually telecast.
So it's little more than useless, too.
























On Sunday afternoon, I left this comment at the Tampa Bay Times website regarding Alex Leary's story on Friday about Sen. Jeff Sessions and his efforts at telling the truth about the myriad amendments and what Rubio and the Gang of Eight are trying to do -buy off senators with promises that the Congress has no intention of keeping in the future.

Tampa Bay Times
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions driven in opposition to immigration reform bill
Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Friday, June 21, 2013 11:20am
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/alabama-sen-jeff-sessions-the-fierce-unrelenting-opponent-of-immigration/2127863

At some point, Alex, you and the other political/govt. reporters at the Times are going to have to have a serious pow-wow amongst yourselves about your news partner, the Miami Herald.
Have to reconcile yourselves with the larger real world consequences of the fact that even while all sorts of things have been going on this past week on Capitol Hill with the immigration bill and the various amendments and fig-leafs intended to get more GOP support, matters that can have been mentioned at all of of the major political websites and blogs, and via Twitter, the zealously pro-amnesty Miami Herald has been engaging in a policy of deliberate censorship.A news blackout against anything and everything that has come out publicly that is negative about the Schumer-Rubio bill, esp. in Ryan Lizza's column in the The New Yorker about Sen. Rubio and his aide, Alex Conant. No, never is heard a discouraging word.
Instead of trying to stay on top of things for its readers as you'd expect, the Herald has gone the exact opposite route -to keep their own readers in the dark by making sure that nothing about it gets into print or is mentioned publicly in their political blog, Naked PoliticsYour Tuesday blog post was NOT co-listed there -for obvious reasons. Because it publicly raised questions about just what was in that column of Lizza's, specifically, Alex Conant's comments which would not have gone down so well in Northwest Miami.
That is precisely what the Herald's current management and editors don't want to see publicly brought up or discussed. especially anything that reflects poorly or Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, almost as if the Herald is now their publicists.Nope, the only things that get into print re S.744 are positive things about immigration -no mention about what the true purposes of the various amendments and fig-leafs are and what groups and industries are pushing them -any why.
Nothing like this fair-minded piece of yours today re what Sen. Sessions wants to do.
There's YOUR news partner at work.
Engaged in a deliberate news blackout against anything that is contrary to their editorial stand on immigration.
Very late Sunday night the Herald posted the Leary story online at  http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/23/3467046/rubios-steadfast-immigration-reform.html

It's NOT like this is the first time that the Miami Herald has gone into full-spin control to protect Marco Rubio once he was elected to the U.S. Senate, either:

The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/10/miami-herald-better-marco-rubio-damage-control-rubio/43990/

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

One week from Florida GOP primary, Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul, and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions re Florida; Ron Paul is missing-in-action



Both the national Mainstream Media & Florida's own MSM continue to coddle Ron Paul and NOT force him to answer self-evident questions, and thus be held accountable.

Paul has not won any of the first three contests and is NOT running a serious campaign in Florida, the fourth-largest state in the country.

As I've written here a few times previously, I was not only born in Texas, I'm a direct descendant of a pioneer Texas Hill Country family that has lived there continuously for well over over 155 years.


And just as the entire country is NOT a small-scale replica of everyday life in Manhattan or Santa Monica, despite what Hollywood and Madison Avenue marketers and network TV execs may attempt to persuade us in films and in television programs and commercials, the entire country is also NOT the south suburban Houston area that is Ron Paul's own congressional district, TX-14.
Map: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=TX&district=14


Voters in Florida next Tuesday, like voters in Iowa and New Hampshire the past few weeks and the upcoming state primaries, quite reasonably believe that they're entitled to be represented by a person as president who at least ATTEMPTS to understand their unique concerns and issues, and who takes those into account when setting national policies and making important decisions.

Given that, how does Ron Paul's failure to even mount a serious effort in Florida to garner their votes, failure to even pretend to try to understand THEIR unique concerns instead of merely repeating his own, now make him a person Floridians should take seriously, now or in the future?

And isn't Paul's behavior towards Florida voters more accurately described as patronizing?
To answer my own question, yes.


So how come nobody in the traveling national press corps or Florida-based news media, print or electronic, will ask them that simple question on camera?
Sometimes, as we've learned, the absence of evidence is evidence of a sort, too, isn't it?


But you don't have to take my word for Paul's patronizing attitude toward Florida voters. 
Let me directly quote the Tampa Bay Times' Alex Leary in their Buzz politics blog today under the headline, Florida presidential primary tracker for Tuesday
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/florida-presidential-primary-tracker-tuesday
Ron Paul: No events scheduled.
Ron Paul is missing-in-action.
Res ipsa loquitur.


And when, exactly, does Ron Paul actually WIN a state primary election?
WHEN?
Name that state?

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012


That's a question that mouthy and opinionated Paul supporters can't or won't answer, for obvious reasons, so when you run into them in-person on see them on TV news segments on the cablenets or C-SPAN sounding loftier than they have any right to sound based on what's actually happened, ask them that simple question.


And tell them that after Paul has ACTUALLY WON SOMETHING, to get get back in-touch, but otherwise, stop annoying everyone with their nonsensical conspiracies about how someone who can't even win a single state presidential primary can be elected president in the year 2012. 
Sorry, it's not the 19th Century anymore. 


It's preposterous.


The truth of the matter is that Paul won't even be able to win the Texas GOP primary on April 3rd.    

Since we don't have a parliamentary system, an American president, whatever else they need to be or do, MUST be seen by both Americans and people overseas as the president of the entire country, not just the small parts of it that happen to agree with him.
And if it's not too much trouble, NOT appear to be overly-contemptuous and dismissive of other Americans.



Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton responds to Barack Obama's recorded comments at a San Francisco fundraiser about residents of small towns in Pennsylvania being "bitter." "Small towns cling to guns or religion" April 2008. http://youtu.be/xNoJ0q6HrK8
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_on_smalltown_PA_Clinging_religion_guns_xenophobia.html


In my view, that's one of President Obama's chief (and unsolvable) problems -he doesn't.
Repeating that same mistake with someone else is NOT a reasonable solution to our current problems.


Pied Piper Ron Paul, go sell crazy somewhere else.
We've already got more than enough of that here in Florida.
-----
Central Florida Political Pulse politics blog of the Orlando Sentinel:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/


The Buzz politics blog of the Tampa Bay Times
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/

http://www.c-span.org/Campaign2012/

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Why is this unfavorable story on Kendrick Meek missing from the Herald, Sun-Sentinel and local Miami TV newscasts?


So you remember my post here of last Monday,
titled, The nexus of South Florida taxpayer
dollars,
sports teams and stadiums:
Dolphins owner Stephen
Ross' checkbook,
with the ProPublica story I posted on pols using
sporting event tickets for fundraising purposes
-something I heard and saw for myself all the time
while living in the D.C. area for 15 years when the
Redskins won two Super Bowl titles in Joe Gibbs'
first term
- and specifically, Congressmen and
Super Bowl tickets?

Well, there's news, and it's exactly what you
thought it'd be, not that any Miami-area
reporters were doing much actual reporting
or investigating during their Super Swoon
mode, when they were swallowing whole all
the PR nonsense they were being spoon-fed.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/nexus-of-taxpayer-dollars-sports-teams.html

Monday ProPublica had a follow-up story
to that article last week I posted and it touched
close to home, though you'd never know it judging
from the reaction of the s
omnambulant Miami
news media to this news about Kendrick Meek
But Alex Leary of the St. Petersburg Times
noticed.


------

Pro Publica
http://www.propublica.org/ion/reporting-network/item/congressional-fundraising-at-super-bowl-stays-out-of-the-limelight-208

Congressional Fundraising Stays Out of the Limelight at Super Bowl

by Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones,
ProPublica - February 8, 2010 4:27 pm EST

The Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints during Super Bowl <span class=XLIV on Feb. 7, 2010 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. (Doug Benc/Getty Images)" width="475">
The Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints during Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, 2010 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla. (Doug Benc/Getty Images)

Was it the two feet of snow that blanketed Washington during the days leading up to the Super Bowl? Or was it the unintended consequence of our Super Bowl Blitz [1], a two-week telephone survey that ProPublica conducted with the help of its readers, trying to find out which members of Congress would be attending this year’s big game?

In any case, at least two Super Bowl fundraising events scheduled by members of Congress were scrubbed at the last minute or moved to undisclosed locations. Invitations to those parties, which had been circulated two or more weeks before the game, promised Super Bowl tickets to contributors who gave either of the lawmakers $5,000.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., had coupled his offer with an invitation [2] to join him over Super Bowl weekend at the posh Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami. Among the activities planned for the weekend was a poolside luncheon. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., had promised contributors lunch at Joe’s Stone Crab, a popular South Beach eatery.

Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., did show up at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Fla., for his fundraiser [3] on Saturday afternoon. ABC News, which partnered with ProPublica in an effort to find out where the members of Congress got their Super Bowl tickets, also showed up at the hotel. But surprised Meek staffers quickly shut the door and asked the crew to leave.

The result was one of those delicate media moments that occur when politicians expecting privacy are confronted by a network news team hoping to film them. As the camera continued rolling in the hallway outside the event, Meek’s staffers peeled name tags off the lapels of the congressman’s departing guests. When Meek headed for his car, ABC’s news crew peppered him with questions about how he got the Super Bowl tickets he offered to partygoers who contributed $4,800. He didn’t have answers.

What we learned from this exercise is that even when the venue is America’s most public sports spectacle, politicians largely succeed in remaining invisible, especially when their activities include fundraising. It quickly became apparent that they feel they’re entitled to privacy when they’re accepting campaign money from contributors.

The Super Bowl is one of thousands of events each year where lobbyists and others with business before the federal government provide campaign contributions to lawmakers in an attempt to ingratiate themselves and gain access. Candidates for Congress raise $1 billion every two years, primarily through these types of private get-togethers.

The Super Bowl presents a special opportunity, because tickets to the game aren’t sold to the general public. A small number—1,000 this year—are sold to people who enter and win a lottery the league conducts. The rest are distributed at face value (either $800 or $1,000 this year) by the NFL and its 32 member teams as they see fit, under a shroud of secrecy.

Most fans are forced to get their tickets on Web sites like StubHub, where a ticket for the nosebleed seats sold for about $1,800. Yet lawmakers like Conyers, Meeks and Meek have no trouble getting tickets, not only for their personal use but also to exchange for contributions that are four or five times the face value of the tickets.

On Sunday, a Meek staffer said the campaign had bought about 10 tickets from the NFL at face value for the congressman and his contributors. However, it remains unclear where Conyers and Meeks got their tickets, how much they paid for them and how much they netted by using them in their fundraising activities.

“Any time politicians are getting something that’s not available to the average fan, I think the public has right to question that,” said Jordan Kobritz, an expert in sports marketing and ethics at Eastern New Mexico University. “I think it’s favoritism. I think it’s a way to raise money. I think it’s one reason why it’s so hard to displace an incumbent politician. They have access to these tickets. They can raise the funds that a challenger cannot raise.”

Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Steve Scalise, R-La., attended the Super Bowl, but it was unclear whether they held fundraisers. Their staffs did not reply to inquiries. Scalise told the New Orleans Times-Picayune he got his tickets from DirectTV, which carries NFL games. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., attended the game, reportedly with his two sons, but his staff could not say how he got his tickets.

The political festivities surrounding the Super Bowl have been more circumspect since 1995, when Congress imposed a $50 limit on the value of gifts that lawmakers could accept, lobbying experts say. The parties became even tamer in 2007, when Congress outlawed gifts of any value after the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

But while the restrictions tamped down the activities, they didn’t eliminate them. Access is one of the most powerful tools available to lobbyists, and campaign contributions remain one of the most reliable ways to get that access.

Three of the lawmakers who came to Miami had home state teams in the Super Bowl—Pence and Bayh of Indiana and Scalise of Louisiana. But they also all hold positions on committees that could make them potentially helpful to a range of industries, whether on regulatory, tax or spending matters.

Scalise is on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is vital to several major industries. Pence is the third-highest-ranking member of the House GOP leadership. Bayh sits on committees that oversee the banking, housing and energy industries.

New York Congressman Meeks sits on the Financial Services Committee, which is playing a crucial role in the nation’s rebound from the 2008 credit crisis.

Florida’s Meek, now in his fourth term, is important because he’s a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. And he has his eye on the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican George LeMieux.

Meek’s spokesman, Adam Sharon, said there is nothing wrong with a lawmaker’s buying tickets at face value from the NFL. “This is simply an opportunity for us to say thank you to our top supporters,” Sharon said. “There is no conflict of interest.”

But with the NFL’s activities increasingly monitored by agencies like the Federal Communications Commission and various congressional committees, some object to the league making tickets available to elected officials.

“This is something that I would see as being unethical” because the tickets aren’t available to average fans, said Kobritz, the sports ethics expert.

For years, the NFL has lobbied Congress for an exemption from the nation’s antitrust laws. That could boost the NFL’s revenue by giving it greater leverage in negotiations with broadcasters. It could also give the league an advantage in its dealings with vendors and players.

The NFL is already an $8 billion-a-year business thanks to revenue from selling broadcasting rights to the networks and DirectTV, ticket sales, stadium concessions and the sale of league apparel.

Frustrated in its efforts to get Congress to act on its antitrust agenda, the NFL is urging the Supreme Court to use a case now before it, American Needle Inc. vs. the NFL, to exempt the league from antitrust laws.

The NFL’s political action committee, Gridiron-PAC, raised more than $310,500 last year, much of it from team owners. It gave $244,500 to candidates, including $5,000 to Conyers, who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee is a point man for antitrust issues in the House.

Jonathan Godfrey, the Judiciary Committee’s communications director, twice told ProPublica that he would try to find out where Conyers’ leadership PAC got its Super Bowl tickets, how many it had and how much it paid for them. He said he would get back to us. He never did. When we spoke with Godfrey today, he still didn’t know if Conyers went to the Super Bowl or if he held a fundraiser.

The NFL also has been tight-lipped about ticket distribution.

“We make a very limited number of tickets available for purchase by request to a variety of people, including elected officials,” said Jeff Miller, the league’s in-house lobbyist in Washington. “Rep. Conyers did not request tickets from our office. If he obtained tickets, it would have been from another source.”

The NFL offered Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, R-La., tickets to the Super Bowl, but he turned them down in favor of an invitation to the watch the game with President Obama at the White House, according the Times-Picayune. The paper also reported that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, would attend the Super Bowl with tickets provided by the New Orleans Saints.

In Indianapolis, the Colts offered tickets to a broad array of public officials, including 32 legislators, four members of Congress and 26 city-county councilors, according to The Indianapolis Star.

At some point, depending on whether they file monthly, quarterly or semi-annually, anyone in Congress who used campaign or leadership PAC money to pay for their tickets will have to file a campaign finance report listing the expenditure. But it might be impossible to find. The line giving the reason for the expense is unlikely to say “to pay for Super Bowl tickets.” More likely, it will say something vague like “fundraising expense.”

******

The Super Bowl Blitz is part of a continuing effort here at ProPublica to try to reveal the circumstances surrounding campaign contributions and the very private exchanges that take place between lobbyists and members of Congress. If you missed out on the Blitz but want to get involved in similar events, sign up here [4] and we’ll notify you of our next project.

This story was a ProPublica/ABC News collaboration.
ABC News: Producers Vic Walter, Megan Chuchmach and Asa Eslocker
ProPublica: Marcus Stern, Sebastian Jones, Amanda Michel, Lisa Schwartz, Kitty Bennett, Scott Klein and Krista Kjellman Schmidt.

The following news organizations jumped aboard: American Public Media, California Watch, Crain’s New York Business, Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Investigate West, MinnPost, New England Center for Investigative Reporting, Orange County Register, Raleigh Public Record, Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, WHYY, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show.

We were assisted by individual reporters and editors at the following publications: Juliana Keeping, AnnArbor.com; Brent Gardner Smith, Aspen Daily News; Jake Torry, Columbus Dispatch; Laura Bischoff, Dayton Daily News; Malia Zimmerman, Hawaii Reporter; Warren Cooper, Hunterdon County Democrat; Kathleen McLaughlin, Indianapolis Business Journal; Lara Cooper, Noozhawk.com; Erin Siegal, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism; Michael Collins, Scripps Howard News Service; Thomas Blinkhorn, Valley News; Edward Marshall, WBBM TV, Chicago; WHRV radio, Nofolk, Va.; Brent Wistrom, Wichita Eagle; Charlie Foster, Youth Radio; Wendy Norris, WesternCitizen.

The following individuals made many calls: Michael Alcantar, Rahul Bali, Amy Biegelsen, Jim Brice, Al Cannistraro, M. Coyle, Casey Cunniff, Robert Davey, Debbie DiMaio, Tim Duda, Sandy Gonzalez, Sherrie Jossen, Neelima June, David Kagan, Hee Jin Kang, Memrie King, Trent Larson, Lionel Logan, Laura Marsan, Cathy McMullen, Robert Melder Sr., Jeff Mende, Ted Michel, Matt Muma, Krishna Murphy, Charles Normann, Michael Olsen, Arash Payan, Diana Perparos, Nicole Pilar, EJ Rotert, Nancy Sheldon, CoConnie Snyder, Jacquelin Sufak, Claire Taylor, Jane Leatherman Van Praag, Sharon Whatley, Paul Wilczynski, Jane Wylen, John Zavesky.

Write to Marcus Stern at Marcus.Stern@propublica.org [5].


St. Petersburg Times

The Buzz
politics blog
Where did Meek get Super Bowl tickets?
Posted by Alex Leary at 04:57:37 PM
February 8, 2010

ABC news was in Miami to investigate political fundraisers built around the Super Bowl. Here is part of the report:

Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., did show up at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables for his fundraiser on Saturday afternoon. ABC News, which partnered with ProPublica in an effort to find out where the members of Congress got their Super Bowl tickets, also showed up at the hotel. But surprised Meek staffers quickly shut the door and asked the crew to leave.


Read the rest of the story and the reader comments at: http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2010/02/where-did-meek-get-super-bowl-tickets.html

--------------

Here's the Herald search I did on Kendrick Meek
and what the results were as of 12 Midnight Tuesday
morning.
Nothing about the fundraiser.

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When I first moved to D.C., before he was named
HUD
Secretary, the Washington Post annually
wrote
about Jack Kemp's fabulous GOP
Super Bowl parties,
when he was still a Buffalo area
congressman.
One of my female housemates in
Arlington was from his district and was from a
family that had worked campaigns for him from
the beginning of his political career. She was
both
a Bills and ballet fanatic.

Kemp was a great guy, too, with a very friendly
and professional
staff, which came in handy since
people from all over the country visiting D.C.
were ALWAYS walking into his office!

Kemp was someone that everyone on The Hill
liked, regardless of their position, because he
treated everyone with respect and didn't put
on airs, like many far-less well-known people
on the Hill did -and still do.
Even Dems I thought I really liked -until I
actually got the chance to see them up-close!

This nuanced and insightful David Broder
article on Kemp from last year, following his
death, is spot-on.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050603318.html

Washington Post
The Life of His Party

By David S. Broder
May 7, 2009

On the very day last week that Jack Kemp, the former quarterback, congressman and 1996 vice presidential candidate, succumbed to cancer, other Republicans were honoring the example of his life by launching a search for new ideas and broader constituencies.

Eric Cantor, the young Virginian who may come closest to Kemp's level of intellectual ambition and political energy in the current Congress, played host at the first of a promised series of policy sessions, along with former governors Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

Welcome as their enterprise is in a landscape notably barren of GOP ideas, they were a pale carbon copy of what Kemp provided an earlier generation of Republicans.

In the understandable nostalgia for Ronald Reagan, who restored Republicans to the White House and led the final, successful stages of the Cold War, it's been too easy to forget that for much of the 1970s and into the 1980s, it was the young Jack Kemp who fired up the grass roots on his weekend speaking forays and who gave a thoroughly beaten minority party the ammunition for its comeback -- even as he built cherished friendships across the aisle.

Kemp was, in my judgment and in the eyes of many other reporters, one of the most consequential and likable politicians of that era.

His signal contribution was proselytizing for supply-side economics, the belief that lowering marginal tax rates would spur economic growth, replenish revenue, overcome deficits and fuel a widely shared prosperity.

He made that the centerpiece of the Reagan economic program and -- as the ringleader of a talented group of backbenchers, including Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Dave Stockman and Vin Weber -- challenged the Old Guard congressional leadership and set the stage for more than a decade of Republican ascendancy.

Those are the things for which the Republican Party owes Jack Kemp. As one who was never persuaded that Kemp was right in his economic theories, I came to value him for something more basic in human terms and far rarer among Republicans. As much as any public figure I have ever known, Kemp burned with a passion to make the American dream real for everyone -- without regard to race, religion or national origin.

A product of a middle-class California upbringing, a success as an athlete and therefore well-to-do, Kemp often said that he learned in the locker rooms of the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills that teamwork was colorblind.

He carried that belief into politics and was outspoken in denouncing those "country-club" Republicans who opposed affirmative action and supported restrictive immigration laws. That's why he was campaigning for John McCain in South Carolina the last time I saw him.

Kemp was nothing if not conservative, but he believed that if those principles were valid, they must be tested and applied, not only in gated suburbia but in the inner cities. In Congress, he co-sponsored "enterprise zones" legislation with African American and Hispanic Democrats. And as secretary of housing and urban development under the first President Bush, he drove the White House crazy, lobbying for programs to revive blighted areas that were no part of Bush's constituency.

In an early profile of Kemp, I compared him to Hubert Humphrey -- "long-winded, gregarious, super-energetic, overscheduled, optimistic, in love with ideas and people, ranging unconfined from issue to issue, an outsider who became part of the political establishment almost despite himself, a partisan battler who hates to hurt anyone's feelings." He sent me a note thanking me for finding similarities to the Democrats' happy warrior.

President Obama commends empathy, and Kemp had it in abundance. He and Bob Dole had quarreled bitterly about economic policy; Dole was never a supply-sider. But when Dole invited Kemp onto his ticket and made him his traveling companion, Kemp was moved by the simple courage Dole showed every day in coping with his grievous war wounds.

When I saw him in his hotel room at the San Diego convention, Kemp asked me, "What's the first thing I do when I make a speech?"

"You take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves," I said, having seen the ritual a hundred times.

"You know," he said, "Dole's wounds -- he can't even do that for himself." And Jack Kemp wept.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Political culture and crime in FL Speaker Ray Sansom's district matches his ethics: pathetic!

Was reading yesterday's excellent post by Alex Leary at the Herald's Naked Politics blog about the latest chapter in the unethical exploits of Florida Speaker of the House Ray Sansom, and his self-serving rationalizations for his curious combination of rampant cronyism, greed and hypocrisy, dressed-up as public service.  (Seems more like 'self-service' to me!)
Sansom: 'I saw no legal or ethical problem'


After reading that, I was curious to see for myself what the newspaper that ran his apologia of an Op-Ed, the Northwest Florida Daily News, might have said about the behavior for the Angel of Niceville, who appears to have quite a history of using taxpayers funds to treat his friends and pals the way they think they deserve to be treated.
I figured I'd find an editorial that was either scathing or softball, since his actions aren't likely to be viewed as anything in-between.

But before I could find that, I found this delicious headline and story from the area that I thought was truly worth mentioning.
I don't know about you, but I hate it when "awkward boots" ruin a good time for everyone. 

Below that, I have found something that sounds all too familiar to me here in Broward County, and in particular, here in Hallandale Beach: items that are NOT put on the public agenda being voted upon without sufficient public notice and citizen input.

That's exactly how in less than two years, Hallandale Beach's Vice-Mayor, William Julianattempted to have the HB City Commission's salary TRIPLED, an interim City Commissioner was selected -Anthony Sanders- and, last month, how City Manager Mike Good's contract was, apparently, renewed 4-1, without any public comment or any documentation given.
All within the past two years.

A resident from Northwest Florida wrote the newspaper to share and recall for everyone's benefit, some of the previous ethical exploits of Mr. Sansom, and brings up several matters that paint a picture of a chronic offender, as well as a political culture there that, frankly, seems remarkably like what passes for the political culture in South Florida.
The "fixer" culture, where you have to pay-to-play.

Speaking of crime, does anyone have any ideas why the Herald has, thus far, never printed the COMPLETE list of names of the 200-odd South Florida 'leaders' who urged U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz to go easy in sentencing the de Céspedes brothers recently for their stone-cold multi-million dollar fraud?

That's a glaring black hole in the story and thus far, nobody in South Florida media seems interested or inclined in making that list public.
Where's the transparency and accountability there?
Where's the curiosity?

I can't be the only person in South Florida who'd like to know just who's on that particular list.
No doubt, lots of people who every day ask South Florida citizens to implicitly "trust" their judgment in making decisions that directly affect their lives and futures.
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Man in awkward boots disrupts AJ's
By Andrew Gant
January 11, 2009

DESTIN - A deck hand proclaimed he "paid the light bill" at AJ's before sheriff's deputies hauled him off for disorderly intoxication.

The 35-year-old man was trying to start fights with bar patrons when employees called 911. He "loudly justified his presence at AJ's" when deputies arrived, claiming "this is no big deal," according to his arrest report.

His muscles were tense, his nostrils flared and his fists clenched, a deputy said.

But the man soon became apologetic and tried to shake the deputy's hand. When he refused, the man said "That's all right, I ain't gonna shake you either when I catch you out of uniform and you are gettin' your ass whooped," according to the report.

As deputies escorted him away, he tripped and fell over a handicap rail because "he was wearing very large, awkward fitting rubber fishing boots," the deputy wrote.

When he got about 50 yards from the restaurant, he yelled, "(Expletive) that mother (expletive), he's (expletive)!"

He told deputies he drank "a few beers" before he was charged with the misdemeanor and taken into custody.

Reader comments at: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/deputies_14106___article.html/deputy_expletive.html#slComments

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Going thru the archives of the Northwest Florida Daily News reveals many gold nuggets of interest regarding Ray Sansom, this particular one in a poll conducted on December 4th.
This particular reader brings up many good points, including 'lack of notice,' but forgets to bring up the egregious case of convicted NW Florida Congressman Robert Sikes.

His corruption and greed was profiled nationally on CBS News' Sixty Minutes in 1979, when I was a senior in high school in North Miami Beach, when that program really attracted huge numbers of TV eyeballs, and before it seemed like every third horrible or weird national/crime story somehow involved someone in Florida.
As is true today.

I've highlighted in red the resemblance to Hallandale Beach's M.O.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/poll_13269___article.html/sansom_florida.html?orderby=TimeStampDescending&showRecommendedOnly=0&oncommentsPage=2#slComments

gatorboy wrote:
YEA!!! Mr. Sansom has been "on the edge" of conflict of interest before when he was county commissioner and rammed through "Jay Odom's curve" which made Jay Odom millions and Sansom benefited greatly from that action. Look where his fancy office is now in FWB, Uptown Station. And guess who owns Uptown Station? Jay Odom. Also this latest payback for getting the college $25 million in one year and getting a part time job for $110,000 which is 30% more than the last guy that had that job and he is a Vice-President to boot so he is lined up to be President when Richburg finally retires and term limits boot him out of Tallahassee. That job was rammed down the College Trustees throats and wasn't even on the published adgenda --- that tells you something---right? He is running true to course like our other State Rep's from NWFLA. 
W. D. Childers of Pensacola is serving time now in Prison and he was President of the Senate plus a County Commissioner from Escambia County. Bo Johnson, another senate president from Santa Rosa County served his prison time for bribery and is now out. So guess Mr. Sansom will follow suit and has gotten the big head and played his politics like the good ole boys have done in the past so guess he will be headed to prison if he keep this up? It is a shame to our area that our representatives are so corrupt and can't keep their fingers out of the till. Mr. Sansom needs to straighten up and fly right and resign from this cushy payoff job. He knows better because his Dad is a preacher. Political power breeds greed and this is a great example. Thank God for term limits. The Congress needs term limits badly too. Look at Ted Stevens and William Jefferson, two crooks in the Senate and Congress....ugh!!! Mr. Sansom.....RESIGN.