There's a reason it's called the First Amendment: Americans want a free and energetic press corps, not a Mainstream Media chorus full of kiss-up sycophants to the President and the powerful, but many in MSM don't care -until Holder & DOJ over-stepped, and even then, some "journalists" can't put Constitution first over their love for Obama: The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza calls out media Obama kiss-ups in public re James Rosen case, while Balt. Sun media critic David Zuirawik deconstructs Obama & Co.'s obsession with Fox News -and attempts to marginalize it- by simply letting facts and Roger Ailes' own words appear in print: "Roger Ailes grabs moral high ground over Obama on phone, email seizures. Memo to Fox staffers shows character, righteousness, leadership"

Roger Ailes grabs moral high ground over Obama on phone, email seizures baltimoresun.com/entertainment/…
— Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) May 24, 2013

This is not a partisan issue. Obama will be gone in 3.5 years. God willing, we reporters will be living with these rules for decades.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 25, 2013

This is dumbest & most frightening take I've read on Rosen matter & I fear it's hardening into the liberal position: m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201…
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 25, 2013

So going to a judge & falsely accusing someone of a crime in order to search their email is now "pro forma."
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 25, 2013

But if that's all really true, it's WORSE than we thought. It means the gov lied to get Rosen's emails and FBI agent Reyes perjured himself.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 25, 2013

This is not a partisan issue. Obama will be gone in 3.5 years. God willing, we reporters will be living with these rules for decades.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 25, 2013

There's a reason it's called the First Amendment: Americans want a free and energetic press corps, not a Mainstream Media chorus full of kiss-up sycophants to the President and the powerful, but many in MSM don't care -until Holder & DOJ over-stepped, and even then, some "journalists" can't put Constitution first over their love for Obama: The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza calls out media Obama kiss-ups in public re James Rosen case, while Balt. Sun media critic David Zuirawik deconstructs Obama & Co.'s obsession with Fox News -and attempts to marginalize it- by simply letting facts and Roger Ailes' own words appear in print: "Roger Ailes grabs moral high ground over Obama on phone, email seizures. Memo to Fox staffers shows character, righteousness, leadership"

Baltimore Sun
Roger Ailes grabs moral high ground over Obama on phone, email seizures
Memo to Fox staffers shows character, righteousness, leadership
By David Zuirawik, The Baltimore Sun
6:12 p.m. EDT, May 23, 2013

The Obama White House has been trying to de-legitimize Fox News almost from the day it took office. Remember the media blitz of 2009 launched by then White House Communications Director Anita Dunn?

I stood with Fox on that one on principle and came away impressed with the almost tribal unity that Roger Ailes inspired in his troops in the face of White House pressure.

Read the rest of Zuirawik's column at:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/bal-roger-ailes-rosen-obama-moral-20130523,0,6047321.story

Such a great closing, and not just because I agree with it 100%::

But I am going to rejoin the battle, because what the White House is doing is truly in a league with Nixon. The difference is that we now have a dumbed-down, wimped-out and suck-up press compared to the one Nixon faced. And what passes for media criticism is, in the main, even more spineless and pathetic.

Too many of the press folks, especially in Washington, are all too happy to kiss up to the White House rather than doing their jobs as Rosen has. Or, maybe they just don't have his dedication and courage.

-----
Ryan Lizza  @RyanLizza  https://twitter.com/RyanLizza

Read his three most recents columns on this subject here:

The New Yorker

May 20, 2013

BLOG: NEWS DESK

THE D.O.J. VERSUS JAMES ROSEN

Here is the full forty-four-page Justice Department application for the search warrant of the Gmail account of Fox News's James Rosen.

By Ryan Lizza

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/the-doj-versus-journalist-gmail.html

May 21, 2013

BLOG: NEWS DESK

THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND FOX NEWS’S PHONE RECORDS

The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters.

By Ryan Lizza

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/the-justice-department-and-fox-newss-phone-records.html

May 24, 2013

BLOG: NEWS DESK

HOW PROSECUTORS FOUGHT TO KEEP ROSEN’S WARRANT SECRET

The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret.

By Ryan Lizza

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/05/how-justice-fought-to-keep-rosens-warrant-secret.html

When providing a Sun-Sentinel reporter with much-needed context re HB, we're reminded again of Comm. Lewy's penchant for craveness, verbosity & duplicity and City Manager Antonio's knack for under-performance

Above, one of the small army of City of Hallandale Beach vehicles -in this case, Code Compliance- that never ever move from their spot in front of or behind the HB City Hall/Police Dept. HQ complex off of U.S.-1/Federal Highway, even while residents and visitors often have to drive around and around the complex looking for a place to park. It's been like this all around the complex for well over eight years and the powers-that-be, Mayor Cooper and City Manager Antonio, continue to ignore resident's calls to keep city vehicles in the back. A few summers ago, a dry one in comparison to normal, I actually took photographs of a couple of COHB cars that had the same exact thing: spider webs that went from the ground to the back tire and then to the bottom of the back seat door on the Driver's side. That's the anti-taxpayer attitude that passes for normal here! March 21, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. 


Below is a copy of an email that I wrote last Friday night to South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter Tonya Alanez, who along with Sun-Sentinel columnist and blogger Michael Mayo, were in attendance at the March 7th Hallandale Beach City Commission meeting, sitting just a few feet away from me, as I recorded certain parts of the meeting and watched the usual antics of the Joy Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew, this time, as they tried to prove a negative -why the Marcum LLP report was actually, well, apparently  good news.

Yes, just ignore those 250 or so "exceptions" Marcum made note of in doing a very shallow review of just some records the city was willing to cough-up, not the array of ones the citizens of this community wanted reviewed for other factors, including fraud, given the millions of tax dollars involved.

No, this is NOT that promised review of the March 7th meeting I mentioned a few posts back, where there were a number of public policy issues that really stood out and demand your attention and notice.

For instance, Comm. Alexander Lewy foolishly making a motion to preclude the elected city commission from actually speaking on the matter of the RK Associates development project on N.E. 14th Avenue so the public in the Chambers could hear their rationale for voting however they were going to vote, on an agenda item I had forgotten was even going to be discussed that night.

Perhaps Lewy did so because developer RK has a solid and consistent history of late of NOT living up to their word or the signed agreements with the city on behalf of the city's taxpayers, something you'd think that City Manger Antonio felt was worth mentioning.
He didn't.
Surprise!

Those of us paying close attention to these matters the past few years already know, though I doubt that would include either Comm. Lewy or Sanders, given that they voted for the motion along with Comm. Ross and Mayor Cooper.
Surprise!

When I showed-up for the evening meeting I hadn't planned on speaking during the Public Comments on that agenda item, but after witnessing Lewy's galling gambit, and listening to an incredulous and quite reasonably-exasperated HB citizen, Michele Lazarow, ask Lewy to explain why he felt the need to make such an unusual motion -which I may've have witnessed maybe once in the past six years that I can recall off the top of my head- and her NOT hearing a good response from Lewy the Liar, I decided that someone need to be reminded of the pink elephant in the room.

After admitting I hadn't planned on speaking, I reminded everyone there in the room and at home watching via their computers, with great specificity, that RK was a serial violator, picking on but the lowest-hanging fruit -their complete failure three years later to comply with the city's signage requirements in the Publix grocery store parking lot off of NE 14th Avenue and HBB, per the surveillance cameras and the next-door Publix Liquor store.
The signs were supposed to be present when the liquor store opened but three years later -NADA!

I know about this because I'm the person who three years ago walked the city's wet-and- shriveled-up paper Code Compliance complaint into Publix and handed it to their on-duty manager, after seeing it lying on grass near the parking lot one rainy day while walking back to my home from a walk up to the beach and back.
Like me, it was soaking wet, and it looked to have long since been separated from the wooden stick it had been attached to, far from where anyone at Publix or RK would ever have sees it.
Yes, a case of Classic HB Theater of the Absurd!

Again, those required signs were STILL missing three years later!

And as if I could have scripted it better myself, that night, RK said it wanted to provide LESS than the required number of parking spaces the city's own staff was asking for.
Surprise!

Last I heard, they STILL owe the public parking spaces for other parts of their retail complex north of Hallandale Beach Blvd. over where the Kirova Ballet studio is located, towards Diplomat Parkway, but...
But again, this isn't THAT blog post!

-----
March 16, 2012




Dear Ms. Alanez:

re your article, Hallandale Beach bans 'human signs' but halts enforcement
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-hallandale-human-sign-ban-20120315,0,6117918.story
Hmm-m...if you knew the true facts, you'd know why that Lewy quote from your article is a perfect combination of faux sanctimony and utter hypocrisy, and even more than is usually the case with any self-serving thing Comm. Lewy says, it's a case of consider the source...

"Without any type of regulations, we would have sign wavers on every single street corner and every single block," Commissioner Alex Lewy said

Let me explain why.


As is customary in most American cities, the hefty candidate packets given to all city candidates in Hallandale Beach by the City Clerk's office upon filing have a section that details the city's own rules regarding where campaign signs can and can't be legally placed within the city.
(Did you know the City of Hallandale Beach also forbids candidates for any political office from using (independently-owned) bus benches within the city limits?)


So, given this information, you'd naturally think then that the same city Code Compliance Dept. that actually cited Comm. Keith London in 2010 for having his one campaign sign on his own front yard -since only one is allowed- a few inches too close to the sidewalk, WOULD see all if not some of the many illegally-placed Alexander Lewy campaign signs in front of and around HB City Hall itself for days and days during both Early Voting and prior to the 2010 General Election in November, right?


I mean especially since the Code Compliance office is right there at HB City Hall, and most of the cars in the City Hall parking lot off of U.S.-1 are assigned to Code Compliance, despite the fact that MANY MANY MONTHS often go by when those vehicles DON'T MOVE, while city residents continually strain to find a place to park for important evening meetings there, right?


And then when you add in all those myriad political campaign signs that have been plucked by Code Compliance for whatever reason, whether illegally or not, and which remain in the back seats of those very cars for days if not weeks at a time, as anyone who has been to City Hall at those particular times knows, including former candidates, well, it's so noticeable that observant people like me even snap photos of the signs in the cars, and see the same signs inside, day-after-day.


But to answer my own question, no, the city's Code Compliance office DIDN'T see those Lewy signs just feet away from their own cars, they just look the other way. 
That's how things are done here.


There's your enforcement of sign ordinances in this city -special rules for special people.


That is, unless you walk into City Hall and wait 10 minutes like I did for someone from that office to actually come to the public window so you can tell them and make a formal complaint when they say they'll get to it.
Unless you won't leave until you actually send a city employee outside their own building to pick the illegal signs up, and then wait and follow the city employee to see that they actually do it, since the signs have either been there illegally for days or the better part of a day, depending upon what day it is.

"Without any type of regulations, we would have sign wavers on every single street corner and every single block," Commissioner Alex Lewy said.

It never ends with him. 


Later...

City spokesman Peter Dobens said the city is confident that its ordinance is constitutional but as a precaution has suspended enforcement while awaiting additional legal review and an opinion from City Attorney Lynn Whitfield.

"The city doesn't believe that it is a free speech issue, because it's clearly an advertisement. However, when it came up, that's when the city said, 'Let's take a look at it,'" Dobens said.

Now that's funny!

It's really too bad that as has been the case for YEARS now, the Sun-Sentinel, the Herald and all of South Florida's TV stations missed the two public meetings, where the City Commission showed no interest in the First Amendment rights of HB business owners, as well as the city's P&Z meeting weeks before that.

I'm sure that if this had been attempted in another city closer to, well, the oblivious Herald's own HQ, given the likely economic results, it would've gotten some coverage, but if it happens in HB, no, everyone in the news room just shakes their head and says, "No, we'll pass."

Not that this lack of living bodies in the back of the room stopped me:
Regulating signage & advertising during a bad economy? Oh, so that's the ticket to economic recovery in Hallandale Beach
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/regulating-signage-advertising-during.html

As it was, when I specifically asked the city's staff at the P&Z meeting during public comments whether or not any of those affected businesses, especially the ones that the city was clearly targeting, had been informed about the proposal, that meeting as well as the upcoming Commission meetings by the city, i.e. them, to ensure some degree of fairness, given that nobody was there, they basically shrugged their shoulders.

There's your evidence of the City of Hallandale Beach going the extra-mile for local businesses!

And yet how entirely predictable was the result of the city's actions?

I already knew from experience that there would be a drop-off for the affected businesses, and as you dutifully reported...

Seven out of 10 customers said they came to his gold-buying business because they remembered his Uncle Sam sign holders, Ezekiel said. Business is now down about 40 to 50 percent, he said."We're crippled enough in this economy, there's no reason to cripple us more," Ezekiel said. "It's like a billboard, they constantly see it, he makes them laugh, he makes them smile and they remember and they come in."

When the business closes up, and it becomes yet another one of the many, many empty storefronts in this city, esp. on HBB in particular, be sure to make plans to come back around HB City Hall and ask the same city commissioners who voted for it whether they have any second thoughts, and even better, just whom do they think is really going to rent those storefronts anyway, some upscale businesses looking to relocate?
Really?

And yet even while they purport to be working towards solving a problem few people think is a real problem, the city looks the other way as the folks from PAL -who already get plenty from HB taxpayers, with little oversight- can put up their advertising signs, sandwich board signs and even city-owned electronic message boards all over town, regardless of whether it's fair or even placed in a safe location, something they don't do for even the city's own important meetings.

Yes, like the Golden Isles Tennis Center where the mayor plays, whose sandwich board sign has been on a median near the Publix on HBB almost un-interrupted for years.
Huh, I wonder why?

Over-and-over in Hallandale Beach under Mayor Cooper, it's a case of special rules for special people.

Next time you're driving south to Hallandale Beach from Hollywood on U.S.-1, one of the city's three main streets, pay attention to how many city blocks on your right -the west side- between Atlantic Shores Blvd. and NE 3rd Street actually have an open business.

There's one (small) block.
That's it.

Though you and I have never officially met or spoken, you're probably smart enough to realize in advance that you are never going to get anything even remotely resembling the unvarnished truth from the city's not-so-talented and not-so-observant new taxpayer-financed spin-meister, Mr. Dobens, given that this city under this administration, for all its lip service, prefers to keep its residents in the dark for as long as possible, rather than trust them to make up their own minds with freely-shared information.
Like adults.

I strongly suggest you take a look at these contemporaneous comments and photos of mine so that when the city loses its case, as I'm sure they likely will, you'll at least have some knowledge for better understanding that they never really took anyone' else's opinion into consideration.

That's how they do it here under the present Joy Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew.

Or, you can just do a Google Images search for "alexander lewy" "campaign signs" and get much the same.

The first dozen or so photos that appear in the search results are all ones that I snapped at the time -there's your proof of both his obliviousness and his hypocrisy, both of which have been on almost continuous display since he was elected, and which shows no sign of abating.

For instance..

1. 
   You're surprised? 13 days before HB election, Alexander Lewy was ...

   hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/.../youre-surprised-13-days-befor...

   Oct 28, 2010 – 13 days before HB election, Alexander Lewy was ALREADY running afoul of rules -no campaign signs on City Hall land, capisce? Uncouth ...

   
   

   
   

   Once again, thru his words & misdeeds, Alexander Lewy is proving ...

   
   

   hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/.../once-again-thru-his-words-mis...

   Mar 22, 2011 – Above, Alexander Lewy and his campaign sign at the entrance of the... IF it was legal to put campaign signs there on city property, within the ...
2. Hallandale Beach Blog: Weather forecast: 100% chance of stone ...
3. hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/.../weather-forecast-100-chance-o...

   Oct 22, 2010 – Above, October 10, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier of Alexander Lewy and Bill Julian campaign signs on Atlantic Shores Blvd., Hallandale ...

As for your Friday night post, VIDEO: No love lost between Hallandale Mayor Joy Cooper, Commissioner Keith London
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2012/03/video_no_love_lost_between_hal.html

you DON'T mention that the predicate for this was City Manager Mark A. Antonio and his staff failing to make copies of Marcum LLP's supposed last-minute four-page addition to the public record, actually available to the public, who'd been waiting for the agenda item to come up for quite some time.

Marcum's reps publicly stated that they had turned over the documents to the city at 4 p.m., but though Antonio and his highly-paid staff of assistants had well over five hours to make copies by the time it finally came up -since it was NOT on the city's own website, and yet would be voted upon- Antonio & Co. failed to do the logical and responsible thing, which in case you forgot, even Mayor Cooper was not very happy about either.

So, Antonio having failed to do something simple and obvious, while they yakked and yakked and actually debated whether or not to direct the staff to make copies, someone showed some initiative and got positive results.
Which is why they took the 15-minute break after Comm. London returned with copies for everyone in the room to actually read for the first time, including the taxpayers in the room, whom they all supposedly work for, though you wouldn't know it from their attitudes and work ethic.

While I like most concerned residents of Hallandale Beach am glad to see someone from the South Florida news media actually showing-up here for a change -and actually staying for the whole meeting- while I'm mindful of the fact that you have limited space, if you can't actually make more of an effort to incorporate any of the actual context or nuance that's actually going on here, frankly, in my opinion, it's actually almost worse than nothing, because it perpetuates the popular idea among the extant news media that the residents of this particular community are entitled to LESS actual democracy, transparency and competency in government than other communities, or news coverage, simply because of where we live in South Florida.
We aren't.

Unconstitutional Power Grab: Hallandale Beach Considers Taxing Political Candidates for Free Speech

Below, an email sent Tuesday afternoon to
Broward County Comm. Sue Gunzburger's
office, that was cc'd to the Commissioner.

I will be at both the Hallandale Beach and
Hollywood City Commission meetings
Wednesday morning and afternoon respectively,
so perhaps I'll see you there.

Just remember, wheels ARE in motion.
----------------------
November 3rd, 2009

Dear X:

Thanks for taking the time to speak to me
this afternoon on a matter I feel is of great
public interest and concern.

Here's the link to the issue I just spoke to you
about on the telephone that will becoming
before the Hallandale Beach City Commission
Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.,
agenda item 7A.

Description:
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2009-11-04%20City%20Commission/Agenda%20Outline%20for%202009-11-04.htm

City Manager's Office Staff Report:
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2009-11-04%20City%20Commission/staff%20reports/00004815.htm

Supporting Documents
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/files/2009-11-04%20City%20Commission/item%207a/index.html

Completely contrary to both the U.S.
and Florida constitution, as well as past
Supreme Court rulings that political
contributions and paid political advertising
are Free Speech, the City of Hallandale
Beach proposes to create a law completely
out of thin-air that gives them the power
and right to charge political candidates
or issue/referendum groups, a tax or fee
of $200 -down from $500!- for exercising
their constitutional right to post either
political or advocacy signs within the
city limits of Hallandale Beach.

If, having paid all legally-required filing fees,
you are then required to pay a tax or fee
for simply exercising a legally-protected
constitutional right like political speech,
it's not really Free Speech, is it?

In my phone conversation with you,
I explained how preposterous this is
for all sorts of reasons, and I will revisit
those same points and others later this
evening on my blog, reminding you that
I've previously written about this issue,
which the South Florida press has
completely ignored.

At the first reading of this on October 21st,
the City Manager's office removed the
previous version of this proposal that,
equally absurdly and unconstitutionally,
gave the unelected City Manager the right
to place political advertising on city-controlled
property if they chose to, despite the fact
that it's the citizens and taxpayers of
Hallandale Beach whom the land in question
belongs to, not the unelected City Manager,
who in Mike Good's case, doesn't even
live in Hallandale Beach.

I'm sure that they are a perfectly fine employee,
but just for the record, the name of the person
in the Broward Supervisor of Election's
office, Operations Dept. I spoke to earlier,
who didn't seem to quite grasp the larger
principle involved that I was trying to share
with them, via a head's-up -even though
I know quite well that Broward County
doesn't have a regulatory element in this,
per se- before placing my call to you at
Comm. Gunzburger's office, is XXX,
who at least has their name and email
address on the Elections webpage.

Why Dr. Snipes and her office's Legal
Counsel don't have their official email
address listed somewhere on their county
webpage,
http://www.browardsoe.org/default.aspx?s=1
I couldn't begin to tell you, since that is
whom I wanted to contact about this matter
in the first place, but couldn't.

It strikes me that if it's good enough for
the County Administrator and the County
Commissioners to have their email addresses
on the county's website, it really ought to be
good enough for the people running the
county's Elections office as well.

City of Hallandale Beach subsidizes propaganda thru $50k grant to FAUX newspaper

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

These are excerpts from an email I sent around the

city, county, region and state to some interested parties

I know on Monday, shortly after getting wind of the

latest HB debacle under the anti-reform tag-team of

Cooper & Good and the Rubber Stamp Crew:

more cash in the pipeline for the propaganda arm

of Hallandale Beach City Hall, the South Florida

Sun-Times.

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

Who says that the economy is in bad shape?

You wouldn't know that if you were here last
week, since the City of Hallandale Beach,
Pop. 37,400, decided to give $50,000 to a
company that puts out the free vanity newspaper
called the South Florida Sun-Times.
Why?

So they can CONTINUE writing only positive
things about Hallandale Beach City Hall and
the people who run things there, since you
really can't call what they do there 'managing.'
Coincidentally, like the very people who write
them checks -just like they did last year.

That's the same publication that the city spent
taxpayer funds on -and employee resources on-
last December when HB city officials actually

mailed out letters soliciting local businesses to

place ads in the Sun-Times, and NOT with

other South Florida media outlets.

I've not only seen that particular letter, I've

made a copy of both it and the city envelope

it was mailed in from HB City Hall.

For those of you who perhaps don't know,
the South Florida Sun-Times is a FREE
broadsheet with no measured ABC circulation,
does NOT print Letters to the Editor, and they

give Mayor Joy Cooper a weekly "column,"

if you can call what she writes a column, and you

won't be surprised to hear that she says whatever

she wants without any fear that any dissenting

points-of-view will ever appearing in the rag.

Since they don't actually cover the City Commission

meetings like a real newspaper, because they don't

want to bite the hand that feeds them, they allow

material and nonsense to run under Cooper's name

that is often more fictitious than factual.

Frankly, it's all the same to them as long as the city's

check doesn't bounce, so in that respect, they have

much more in common with a print shop like Kinko's

than a genuine independent newspaper.

They're a printing press for City Hall, plain and simple.

One of the more unusual things about their operations

-and I'm far from the only person in S.E. Broward

who knows this or who has noticed it- is that they

also don't hesitate to pretend to be at public events in

the area that they don't actually attend.

Yet, that doesn't prevent them from writing about
matters and discourse as if they were really there.

And as you'd guess, they are just positively delighted

with whatever people from HB City Hall say or do.

(That is, unless their name happens to be Comm.

Keith London, in which case you are practically

invisible.)

And isn't that what a paid government propaganda

organ is supposed to do?

Ignore those who would cast sunshine and scrutiny

on the words and behavior of the powers-that-be?

Yes.

I've ACTUALLY been at some of the events
they've described, and knew who everyone
there was, and they had nobody there.

This includes the mysterious selection of Anthony

Sanders as an interim HB commissioner exactly

one year ago in the Commission Chambers.
There was hardly anyone there and yet...

Let's just say there's a lot of Oliver Stone-inspired
fiction in what they print.

Simply put, in a free market economy, it is NOT the

job of government, especially Hallandale Beach City

Hall, to use taxpayer funds to pick winners and losers

in the local economy, and play favorites.

What makes it especially heinous is that the foolish and

irresponsible decision is not being made by someone

whom the citizens of this community have elected, but

rather by someone that is NOT only un-elected, like

City Manager Mike Good, but someone who doesn't

even live here.

To prove that this vapid vanity press is not real journalism,
consider their allowing City Hall employees to write and
then insert something masquerading as a news article, below,
in order to spin City Hall's take on an important issue that
could hardly be more transparent, i.e City Hall paying much
more than the appraised value of Comm. Sanders property,
see my post from Oct. 27th:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/decreasing-value-of-miami-herald.html

If they'd had more time, the city might've even said that Anthony Sanders
was born in a log cabin!


As the great poet Anonymous once put it,
the Sun-Times is the place where,
"Seldom is heard a discouraging word,
and the skies are not cloudy all day."

Wonder if this bad trend will catch fire across
the country, or whether common sense will
ultimately prevail, and American cities that
already have such bad deals in place for
taxpayers will actually be killed?

With two weeks off for vacation, sick days
and the odd holidays, that comes out to about
$1,000 a week to subsidize a joke that
nobody-but-nobody believes and which
very few people read.

Which, of course, explains why there are
still plenty of them from July still sitting
on a shelf in HB City Hall, near the elevator
and supposed Public Notices board.
People won't take them even when
they're free!

I guess in the end, the real joke is on
Hallandale Beach's already -beleaguered
taxpayers, who have to find out after-the-fact,
months later, what their un-elected City
Manager has been doing with their money.

He's not even bothering to require the
principals involved to show-up in person
at a public city commission meeting and be
subject to any scrutiny, much less, possible
ridicule.

But then that's why this was handled
this particular way, because it does
stink!

Once again, un-elected Mike Good
playing Santa Claus with taxpayers
money.

And Mayor Joy Cooper just lets him.

To protect the innocent, I've removed the names and

email addresses of some residents that appeared below.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
------------------------------

Sent: Tuesday,

January 13, 2009 8:16 PM

To: London, Keith

Subject: Sun Times & City Biz

Mr London,

Thank you for understanding the fact that the city should not be in the newspaper business. After reading the article in the Sun Sentinel I was appalled and shocked at the reasoning used by your fellow commissioners and Mayor for advertising in the Sun Times and their use of city funds to promote a private for-profit business. As a Broward county business person I wish that the communities in the county would "bail me out" in these challenging economic times, but as you are aware, this is not how it works. No explanation is needed, it business.

If you and your other city officials would like to explore other ways to reach the citizens of your community in a non partisan, unbiased and more economical way, please contact me, but all you need is part time graphics person, a good web press printer, and a distribution vehicle such as Valassis or the USPS (I do not work for a printer or Valassis). In addition, market the city web site via your webmaster and you'll be set.

Thanks for your time.

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re Sonia Sotomayor ruling that teen's blog post created a created "foreseeable risk of substantial disruption"

May 28th, 2009

4:30 p.m.

You may've already heard about this particular case involving Sonia Sotomayor already, but just in case... Matt Drudge had a link to this great story this afternoon. 
I should admit up front, too, that I'm a big proponent of having battle of the bands, so my sympathy is with this high school student, Avery Doninger.

Sotomayor Ruled in "D-Bag Case"- Ruled teen's blog post created a created "foreseeable risk of substantial disruption" by Yvonne Nava and Leanne Gendreau, May 28, 2009 http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Critics-unhappy-with-Sotomayors-role-in-CT-free-speech-case.html

To better illustrate how this article above gives us more insight into Sonia Sotomayor, per a previous blog post here and email to many people in the community about two months ago, about how much local School Boards might spend in San Diego for their national convention while decrying all the cuts they're being forced to make, i.e. actually spend within their economic means for a change, just consider what would've happened if this HS student, Avery Doninger, this contemporary Nancy Drew, this possible future Medill grad, had lived in Miami-Dade or Broward County, and decided she had the perfect idea for a blog post.

To highlight the phony crocodile tears aspect of these folks who run the school system she's a lab rat in, she decided to highlight the curious spending patterns and policies of the School Board and their administrators and minions when using taxpayer funds during the current economic situation, to the dire Sky-is-falling threats they were issuing, no more new erasers and chalk and textbooks and... she files public records requests to document how much Superintendent Jim Notter's or Roberto Carvalho's School Board Crowd was spending in San Diego on on of their annual education conference junkets, and also sees how that compares with how much had been spent in the past on previous such jaunts, and seeks to determine if there was any difference in the number of personnel attending.

Weeks later, after subjecting these grown men and women, these government employees, to a degree of accountability, oversight and resulting ridicule in her blog by drowning them in indisputable facts, what do you think would happen?

Do you honestly have any doubt that as actually happened, local Educrats would get their revenge by having her labeled a troublemaker, and prevent her from participating in student govt. as some sort of crude punishment?

If you don't think that would happen here, you live in some other part of South Florida that I'm not familiar with, so could you tell me where that magical place is?

These are the very same people whose brilliance is responsible for a wink-wink policy of putting up barriers to news reporters from finding out the facts after a kid has been arrested at a school for bringing a weapon, as happened to Channel 10's Glenna Milberg while she was doing a story at Hallandale Adult/Community last Fall.

Her cameraman showed some spunk and shot video of some school official with a walkie talkie running excitedly towards them while they were on public property -parking lot?- and when they said they wanted to talk to the school's principal, he got all angry and yelled "No!"

Like he was at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin or something.

It was both preposterous and yet typical of many local South Florida government types, especially people connected to the School systems.

In her piece, Glenna had a great voice-over on this footage that was shot, commenting -I'm paraphrasing- that the school seemed more concerned with stopping her and her cameraman from getting some actual facts and inteviewing a responsible party at the school than they were in actually stopping weapons from coming onto campus!

Touché!

Milberg shoots and she scores!

http://www.justnews.com/news/18053278/detail.html

http://www.justnews.com/news/18053278/detail.html#video

It seems clear from the record that in the hypothetical example I've described here, just as the article says, Sotomayor would imply that the facts didn't really matter, even if Doninger 

was actually doing the public some good by getting that info out.

Which is no surprise, since Sotomayor proved in the New Haven case that she supports the role and power of government, not the rights of individuals, and she'd rule against the student the same way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042402305.html

Washington Post
The Wreck of a Spoils System

By George F. Will 
April 26, 2009

So tell me again how her nomination is great for those with opposing or minority point-of-views to the powerful or status quo?

And when do we actually hear who her corporate clients were after she did her time with DA Robert Morgenthau in NY? 
Why is that still such a secret all these days later?

Also, for more on Sotomayor please see these great PolitickerNY articles that I was tipped-off to by my daily New York Observer email:

1.) The Many Rabbis of Sonia Sotomayor by Jason Horowitz

http://www.politickerny.com/3719/many-rabbis-sonia-sotomayor

and,

2) The Sotomayor Attacks: 2012 Republicans Throw Red Meat to a Shrinking Base by Steve Kornacki

http://www.politickerny.com/3750/sotomayor-attacks-2012-republicans-throw-red-meat-shrinking-base