How is Broward County Democratic Party chair Mitch Caesar NOT like a Mother Bear? Unlike this video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Caesar has NOT been seen publicly trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be (illegally) living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the FL Constitution: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz. Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs, Perry Thurston; What was the greater societal good that Caesar thought was accomplished by them drawing a salary for a job that they may NOT have been legally qualified for?

http://explore.org/#!/videos/player/mother-protects-her-cubs-at-brooks-falls

Brooks Falls Bearcam: http://www.nps.gov/katm/photosmultimedia/brooks-falls-bearcam.htm

Unlike this amusing video of a Mother Bear at Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park in Alaska protecting her young cubs, Broward Democratic Party Chair Mitch Caesar has NOT been seen trying to save his six Dem legislators who may be illegally living outside the districts they're supposed to represent, and who may well get prosecuted for violating the Florida Constitution and breaking the trusts of the voters: Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston.

But that doesn't fully explain away the complete failure of ANY reporters at the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, CBS4, NBC-6, 7 News and Local10 to even attempt to interview Caesar and ask him on-camera why this wink-wink acceptance of it has been allowed to go on for years in Broward County under the one-hand-washes-the-other brand of political cronyism, wherein Broward lobbyists are in far too many instances the chief campaign fundraising link for pols whom they'll later be appearing before.

It's a system that completely disadvantages the public interest and non-profits and unduly rewards a handful of already-powerful lawyer/lobbyists in downtown Fort Lauderdale what is an overwhelmingly Democratic County -with too few powerful Independent-minded pols who refuse to play that game and will push back hard, a gaping weakness in the political culture here that usually exists even in the smallest counties around the country.

In short, people who are used to always getting what they want, or indirectly threatening elected officials and their pals and sycophants with turning off the campaign cash spigot.

Mitch Caesar has been the Broward County Dem Party chair the entire time many of these pols have been in their current office, committing fraud, so he has a lot to account for personally. 
But he doesn't seem to be held responsible for anything by the current press corps in South Florida.
With the exception of a handful of reporters, the press here acts like Caesar is just like you and me -watching from a distance and finding out from TV and the newspaper and blogs like mine.
But he's NOT like you and me -he's at the center of everything in Broward County.

How come he was fine for so many years with so many hundreds of thousands of Broward voters being lied to, intentionally?

And even more importantly, what exactly was the greater societal good that Mitch Caeser personally believed was being accomplished by the six of them drawing a salary for years for a job that they may've NOT legally been qualified for under the Florida Constitution?
Name one. 
Name two.

It's because we all know implicitly that he can't give even one good reason to such a simple question that I've assembled the Top Ten Reasons It's So Important to Broward County Residents... to have such unremarkable and even thoroughly mediocre legislators in office like Joe Gibbons, Dale Holness, Jared Moskowitz, Hazelle Rogers, Maria Sachs and Perry Thurston, even if they have to intentionally violate the Florida Constitution to do it:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Above, the complete list.

What do you know, there's not a single valid reason.

Or are you one of those people, outliers, who believe that rank mediocrity should always be rewarded at election-time, since that would explain a lot in Hallandale Beach and other cities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

William March has scoop on Bill Nelson & Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ally and lobbyist Allison Tant, who wants other Tampa Bay-area Dems to quit so she can qualify to run for Florida Democratic Party Chairmanship; This only proves wisdom of current Chair Rod Smith's recommendations all over again about how party leaderships battles should be done; Miami Herald is completely ignoring this issue -and Annette Taddeo-Goldstein. Tant pis pour elles!

I hadn't expected to find myself writing about internecine Democratic Party leadership battles in Florida for two posts in a row but here we are nonetheless.
Yesterday, I wrote about the battle for the Broward County Democratic Party chairmanship between challenger and part activist Cynthia M. Busch and incumbent and lobbyist Mitch Caesar.
This afternoon, the Tampa Tribune's William March was johnny-on-the-spot with more news about inter-party grudge matches coming to a head in the Sunshine State.
  

Tampa Tribune

Fresh squeezed Polics blog

Tant ready for a battle for state Dems chair

Posted Dec 5, 2012 by William March

Updated Dec 5, 2012 at 04:32 PM

Prominent Democratic fundraiser Allison Tant of Tallahassee said Wednesday she was recruited by Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to run for the state Democratic Party chairmanship, and that she’s prepared for a battle if necessary in seeking the office.

Read the rest of the post at: http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/news/story/tant-ready-for-a-battle-for-state-dems-chair/

So, what most accurately describes this situation above?
a.) Changing the rules in mid-stream (mid-game), or,

b.) special rules for special people

Or is it both as I think?

If Allison Tant and her allies have to either induce other Democrats who were already duly-elected by other Democrats to quit -despite her knowing the qualification rules months ago- or even has to engage in a degree of intimidation in order to get a specific result that rewards someone who, coyly-but-unconvincingly says that she never thought about running for the position until last Friday, do you think the bigger problem here might be the party's rules themselves, that DO NOT reward actual hard work by party members and activists on the ground, but DO reward party pooh-bahs with high self-regard?

And really, a state Democratic Party chair who is a longtime lobbyist?
Like Mitch Caesar times 67? (Sixty-seven being the number of counties in the state.)

Is that really the road that the state party wants to travel after so many Obamaphiles have decried the horrors of corporate lobbying and influence peddling to voters for a year straight?
I think not.

And where would the conflict of interest even begin to cover THAT situation?

Given this delicious bit of recon intelligence offered by William March this afternoon, I re-direct your attention again to my post of yesterday regarding Tampa Bay Times reporter/columnist Adam C. Smith's interview with current Florida Democratic party Chair Rod Smith, and how some of the comments seem to me to be an almost a perfect description of the situation in Broward County.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/hmm-m-florida-democratic-party-chair.html

Rod Smith's prescriptions for Fla Democrats

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/rod-smiths-prescriptions-fla-democrats

What is the number one recommended change cited by Rod Smith?

Change the way party chairs are elected, opening up eligibility to everyone rather than just to party activists who have been elected local state committeemen or state committeewoman and county chairs. The current system breeds "real subterfuge" where would-be chairs, himself included in 2010, at the last minute strike a deal to get elected to their local party leadership (as Annette Taddeo-Goldstein was elected Miami-Dade chairwoman Monday night).

Oops!

Where in the Miami Herald have you seen anything about Annette Taddeo-Goldstein did to get her position? 
Nowhere.

Here, by their own accounts, is the sum total of her name in-print in the Herald this year:

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Annette+Taddeo-Goldstein

Nowhere in print in the past four weeks since the election and nowhere online prior to Monday late night.
By the way, since I don't want to miss this opportunity, most people would agree with me that simply printing a press release is NOT journalism
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/12/miami-dade-dems-choose-first-latina-chair-annette-taddeo-goldstein.html

So the Herald had nobody at or outside of the meeting Monday night and wrote absolutely NOTHING about what really happened Monday night?
That's also NOT real journalism.

But of course, being the Herald, they could rationalize it because at least they got to use the word "Latina" in their headline.
Only one of their favorite words!

Thus, even a well-informed Herald reader would NOT have even known that she was angling to be state party chair based on... well, what exactly?

Her failed congressional candidacy in 2008 and her failed Miami-Dade County Commission candidacy in 2010?
The video of her on YouTube that a grand total of 32 people, including me, have seen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18T2jYKAec8

Me, I think that after what has just happened with the election, I DON'T think the rest of the state is going to vote to reward a Hispanic woman from Miami with the title of State Chair, who just qualified to run on Monday night.
Especially a woman who, despite having run for Congress four years ago, is still largely an unknown quantity, and a woman who, per my many criticisms of the state of journalism in South Florida, was NEVER mentioned in the Herald this year regarding her political activities even once.

Not once!
And this is the person who should be in charge of the state party?

A woman whom everyone says is personally very nice but who, to be honest, has actually done MUCH LESS than MANY other Dems running for county chairs throughout the state?
Like Cynthia M. Busch for instance?

How exactly would that square with any semblance or notions of merit?

Also, what exactly did Annette Taddeo earn from The Tuck School at Dartmouth?

-----
http://www.annettetaddeo.com/

Hmm-m... Florida Democratic Party Chair Rod Smith sounds like he's talking about Broward County Dem czar Mitch Caesar to me when he talks about things he'd like to change...

As some of you reading this post may or may not have heard -though certainly not on Miami TV- Broward County Democratic Party czar Mitch Caesar is running for re-election against activist Cythia M. Busch, and many people, not just the devout Obamaphiles, want to toss him overboard toute-de-suite for his inability to translate this county's overwhelming Democratic registration advantages into... well, something else.

They argue among themselves about the details of what they actually want, but they're in agreement that he needs to go, which makes him sort of like what Dave Wannstedt was his last year as Dolphins head coach.

People wanted him gone!

Given what many people believe are Caesar's poor and clumsy management skills, inability to communicate any message except his own when he himself is in front of a national TV camera, plus his myriad lobbying activities within the area, where he's apparently often in towns where, theoretically, he has some degree of power over the people he's actually lobbying, party-wise, people think it's time to change horses.

But he won't go quietly.

Per this, http://www.browardbeat.com/demos-fight-over-future-of-the-party/

and this, http://www.browardbeat.com/dan-lewis-demo-boss-ceasar-needs-to-retire/

and that, of course, http://www.browardbeat.com/state-party-ceasar-never-stole-last-election/

This evening, just a few moments after it got posted, I was sent this Buzz blog item written by Adam C. Smith at the Tampa Bay Times website, which had this great quote from Florida Democratic Party Chair Rod Smith on what he'd like to do, if her could, to make the party structure more open and responsive:

Why? "It's about some people who are empowered and have disproportionate, political attention because you have to go to them and get their support to be, chair of the party...when they might not even have much influence in their own, county," Smith said.

Rod Smith's prescriptions for Fla Democrats

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/rod-smiths-prescriptions-fla-democrats

What upcoming re-election battle between Mitch Caesar against Cynthia Busch?

The Miami Herald hasn't mentioned his name in print since July 7th.

Surprise! 

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Mitch+Ceasar%22

I voted for Rod Smith for governor in 2006, and still have one of his plastic yard signs behind a chest of drawers.

For obvious reasons, I'm a sucker for signs that say "Smith for Governor."

As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...

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As imperfect as they are, the NFL "replacement" officials are still performing their job much-better than the following people or groups in Florida are performing their's...

Broward County Legislative Delegation 

Time to end 'free ride' for the Broward Legislative Delegation on Broward taxpayers' back; they should pay ALL costs of an office few citizens know of

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/time-to-end-free-ride-for-broward.html

Broward County School Board, esp. ethically-challenged Chair Ann Murray, who legally represents Hallandale Beach on the Board, and yet has continually demonstrated that she's afraid of meeting with well-informed Hallandale Beach parents and taxpayers in public and the city. Murray also refuses to answer longstanding questions in public about her very questionable judgment and decisions.

Ann Murray -she's a phony, a bigot and a no-show. Consistently. That's what voters have seen of her tenure on Broward School Board so far -she needs to go!; update on projects at Hallandale High School

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-1-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/part-2-of-2-ann-murray-shes-phony-bigot.html

Video of Bob Norman's news report at Channel 10: Montessori school called 'Jen's baby', Report blames former school board member Jen Gottlieb for $25M pushing project through
http://www.local10.com/news/FDLE-report-details-how-Beachside-Montessori-Village-was-built/-/1717324/16694318/-/pfxegl/-/index.html

Broward School's Transportation Dept. and director Chester Tindall 

Video of Bob Norman's news report at Channel 10: School board: Bus drivers wanted
http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/School-board-Bus-drivers-wanted/-/3223354/16502446/-/6i1o4q/-/index.html

Broward schools paid $800,000 for GPS, but rarely used it

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-09-19/news/fl-broward-bus-gps-update-20120919_1_gps-project-nora-rupert-school-board

Substitute teachers in Miami-Dade and Broward County -As true today as it was over thirty years ago... 

Florida Dept. of Transportation, District 4 
Inattention to detail costs lives, risks lives, and costs money, yet they are chronically tone-deaf to criticism that is not only self-evident to folks paying attention to longstanding problems. 

When was the last time that District 4 Secretary James A. Wolfe subjected himself to intense questioning and follow-up about the dept.'s efforts and policies from the public -in public- instead of merely to industry professionals at closed and often paid events? Or even to reporters who cover transportation? 
Whose name, phone number and email address doesn't appear on District 4's webpage?
http://www.d4fdot.com/index.asp
Why it's the very person in charge -James A. Wolfe. 
It's also not searchable!

Office of Broward State's Attorney Michael Satz

Not enough space on page to delineate the full scope of the problems, suffice to say that 36 years for one person to be in charge of such a responsible position is too much, esp. for someone who has produced such paltry results in the State of Florida's most corrupt county -the worst of 67!

Broward County Democratic Executive Committee and disconnected Chair Mitch Caeser. Lots of people are quoted as having said variations of that as long as nobody cares who gets the credit, a lot of positive things can be accomplished. The problem in Broward County is that Caesar and his cronies DO care who's in charge and who gets the credit. Desperately, desperately care! But what do they have to show for it? He and his pals are the head party boss and cabal of a one-party county that long been the most-corrupt in the state. Which means that he apparently writes a lot of letters requesting clemency for his friends, many of whom he also lobbied while they were elected municipal officials before they were arrested and frog-marched out in handcuffs. 

Florida Democratic Party Alex Sink, Nan Rich and Charlie Crist? The Three Stooges.

Miami Herald's management and editorial staff, esp. those responsible for local news and schools coverage. 

Fact checking the Miami Herald's dubious claims on Education: Over the weekend, I unexpectedly found myself forced to 'school' the Herald's Executive Editor after she bragged about the Herald's coverage of Education. I had to bring up some inconvenient facts rebutting that claim
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/fact-checking-miami-heralds-dubious.html

So when are the Miami Herald and the South Sun-Sentinel going to note the elephant in the room in Hallandale Beach? The ethics of and the complete lack of candor from Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & his wife Jessica; Mayor Cooper and Comm. Sanders screw with public's access to HB budget meetings; @MayorCooper, @SandersHB
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/so-when-are-miami-herald-and-south-sun.html

Is there anyone in South Florida media with lower visibility than Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg? What are his specific plans for transforming the newspaper so it doesn't remain
irrelevant to what goes on in South Florida, seemingly always the last to know something or report something?

What's going on at the Miami Herald? More than a year after the last one fled, the Herald still lacks an Ombudsman -and shows no sign of getting one- to represent readers deep concerns about bias, misrepresentation and flackery on behalf of South Florida's powerful & privileged at the Herald. And that's just one of many unresolved problems there...
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/whats-going-on-at-miami-herald-more.html

For another consistently lousy year of journalism at the Miami Herald, esp. covering Broward County, more lumps of coal in the Christmas stocking of One Herald Plaza -Part 1
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-another-consistently-lousy-year-of.html

South Florida Sun-Sentinel's management and editorial staff, particularly those directly responsible for unsatisfactory local news and school coverage, esp. the editors, reporters and columnists who have shown over the years that they are nothing more than lapdogs for Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

OMG! Really, another interview with predictable Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on Channel 10's TWISF tomorrow? Why? Will there be any mention of the Sun-Sentinel STILL ignoring the Glenn Thrush book's depiction of DWS's unpopularity at Obama HQ in Chicago?; Sun-Sentinel has completely morphed into the Snooze-Sentinel! It's now more of an idea of a newspaper, and a bad one at that, rather than a newspaper you actually look forward to reading

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/omg-really-another-interview-with.html

And did I mention that their Broward Politics blog hasn't added anything to their YouTube Channel in over 16 months? http://www.youtube.com/user/BrowardPolitics/
Way to stay current!

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, President Mike Dee and General Manager Jeff Ireland 
In other parts of the country, though not here, it's not unusual to hear people say "To whom much is given, much is expected."
With respect to the Dolphins, not so much. #EpicFail

Above,  501 N.W. 1st Avenue, which in Hallandale Beach polite society and public policy circles is considered THE most egregious example of dozens of exasperating and highly-questionable examples of dubious government spending and crony capitalism that've taken place on Mayor Joy Cooper's watch, and one of the most dubious of any in Broward County, which is REALLY saying something. It's the infamous former property owned by HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders that has seen so many tens of thousands of Hallandale Beach taxpayer dollars and CRA dollars poured into it. For what, THIS? photo by South Beach Hoosier © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

Myopic and inattentive City of Hallandale Beach mayor Joy Cooper and the three members of her Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew on the City Commission, who thru their continued negligence and actual unwillingness to perform basic oversight functions and be strictly accountable to, and honest with, taxpayers, have made what should be one of the nicest parts of Broward County into something that is NOT.

See numerous stories proving this at  http://www.browardbulldog.org/?s=hallandale

The city's budget has nearly doubled the past 6 years and what is there to show for it? What is the tangible thing that taxpayers can look at or feel? And the same is true with the money that the city has wasted from the CRA thru grants and loans to their pals thru crony capitalism.
Karma has big plans for them!

Myopic City of Hallandale Beach Police Chief Dwayne Fluornoy and his top-heavy dept. with enough psychological and relationship problems to keep Freud and Jung busy for a year. That they also are guilty of speeding in inappropriate places around town and are routinely inattentive to basic self-evident safety problems all around the city, esp. on the city's main three roads, makes it all the worse. 
Some Cops Given A Pass If Caught By Red Light Cameras
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/04/22/some-cops-given-a-pass-if-caught-by-red-light-cameras/

Their complete abdication to Mayor Cooper on the red-light camera issue was proof positive to many people who formerly gave them the benefit of the doubt that the Police Dept. is now hopelessly and morally compromised. The next police chief needs to come from outside of the Dept., preferably, from far away! 
There are still far too too many mediocre cops in this city with chippy attitudes.

Pampered City of Hallandale Beach Fire Dept. Daniel Sullivan and the dept. that regularly uses a fire truck to buy groceries at Publix and seems a little too chippy. 
Oh, and they also don't cite businesses for violations of fire safety regs that are pro-City Hall or give money to PAL.

City of Hallandale Beach DPW Director Hector Castro and his lazy and unprofessional staff, who for years have made this city a mess for the eye to behold and given new meaning to the word underwhelming, especially with their horrific care of the city's public beaches.
That's why, if you didn't already know, why embarrassed HB residents refuse to take visiting family and friends to HB's beach on holidays and go instead up to nearby Hollywood Beach,  which is why that beach is SO crowded then.

Hundreds and hundreds of embarrassed Hallandale Beach residents and their guests, spending money there instead of their own city.
Another Joy Cooper success story.

57 states of Obama Nation feeling blues as TIME's Mark Halperin says "Obama's alienation of independents and white voters" may lead to GOP Congress

The 57 states of Obama Nation are already starting to feel the winter blues as TIME's Mark Halperin says that "Obama's alienation of independents and white voters" may lead to GOP Congress.

And clearly, some of those new GOP seats will definitely be coming in Florida, perhaps even Ron Klein's that hugs Broward and Palm Beach Counties.
http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/juice/2010/07/allen_west_blacklisted_cystic_fibrosis_klein.php

Whatever they do, they can't make stiff and humorless John Boehner the Speaker, and should instead select Hoosier Mike Pence like I've been saying all along, or Eric Cantor of Virginia.


TIME
One Nation
Dems Start to Panic As Midterm Reality Sets In
By Mark Halperin
Monday, Jul. 19, 2010

President Barack Obama during a meeting with house speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid on financial reform at the White House, April 14, 2010

Under pressure, the Democrats are cracking. On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a realization that Nancy Pelosi's hold on the speakership is in true jeopardy; that losing control of the Senate is not out of the question; and that time, once the Democrats' best friend, is now their mortal enemy. Since January, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, the President's party has tried to downplay in public what its pollsters have been saying in private: that Obama's alienation of independents and white voters, along with the enthusiasm gap between the right and the left, means that Republicans are on a trajectory to pick up massive numbers of House and Senate seats, perhaps even to regain control of Congress.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2004646,00.html

------
Politics Daily
Nearly 6 in 10 Lack Confidence in Obama to Make Right Decisions
By Bruce Drake
July 13, 2010

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say they have "just some" or no confidence in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country, and they give even lower marks to congressional Republicans and Democrats, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted July 7-11.

Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/13/nearly-6-in-10-lack-confidence-in-obama-to-make-right-decisions/

-----

National Journal
RULES OF THE GAME
New Battle Lines Drawn Over Redistricting
Reformers Admit It's Still A Battle, But There's New Passion Behind Transparency Efforts
by Eliza Newlin Carney
Monday, July 19, 2010

The golden nugget of this article for my purposes is this:
In the House, the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition has backed legislation authored by Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., that would pull back the curtain on the secretive redistricting process and force more public participation and input.

"The present system makes bipartisanship difficult and sometimes virtually impossible," said Tanner when the Blue Dogs endorsed his bill, the Redistricting Transparency Act, earlier this year. Tanner pointed to data from the Cook Political Report showing that fewer than 100 of 435 House districts are competitive within a 4-point margin of error.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/po_20100719_6570.php

See also: http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/home.php

As most of you who come to this blog fairly regularly know by now, I'm a Blue Dog Democrat.
It's hardly a secret.

To go to a website full of compelling, fact-filled arguments against all the bad public policy prescriptions now flying around D.C. go to http://www.house.gov/melancon/BlueDogs/

The BDC advocates fiscal responsibility, with an emphasis on cost-saving and bipartisan common sense. Not surprisingly, given that approach, the only member from Florida is Allen Boyd from North Florida.

Thinking the way I do so publicly in Broward County means constantly running into people here who are extremely liberal and who have drunk the Obama Kool-Aid straight, with no chaser, and who for reasons of either birth, convenience or lack of perspective, have Broward or South Florida or The East Coast as the center of the universe, with no earthly conception of genuinely competitive congressional races.

Similarly, for them, the small-town life of inter-dependence depicted so tellingly in NBC's fabulous Friday Night Lights might as well be set in Mars, as it's terra incognita for them.

It also means that, more often than not, these people have no conception of people like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin or Baron Hill and what makes them or the blue-collar constituents they represent in Congress from South Dakota and Indiana, respectively, tick.

This is reflected in the fact that they actually think they are clever by calling someone like me or others names, simply because we have a different opinion about how one goes about actually solving genuine problems, with the Broward NewTimes and Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics blog comment forums being their preferred sites, though they know not the first thing about me, or, judging by what they write, this country.

It's all rather pathetic and self-serving to a fair-thee-well, of course, but then look at who does it and consider as well who the South Florida news media regularly shows as the Broward County man with the real power in the Democratic Party, lobbyist Mitch Caesar.
Now there's a role model!

He's a person who despite all his lip service about community, somehow never saw fit to make it his business to speak before the Broward Ethics Commission to share his thoughts on what was going on in this corrupt county amongst his friends, even while folks like myself and Charlotte Greenbarg were both speaking on the record and writing about it.
But not him.

And as you know from previous posts here, his bosom pals like Broward Comm. Stacy Ritter chose to use their visits there as a chance to rip people they disagree with rather than to distinguish themself.

http://www.redstate.com/etcartman/2010/04/07/lt-col-allen-west-responds-to-democrat-lies-and-accusations/

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2010/01/monday_quick_takes.php-

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index/collection:all/keywords:stacy+ritter/sort:dateDesc/

Mitch Caesar's bluster, even at supermarkets reportedly, makes him personally toxic and a member in good standing of Broward's endemic culture of corruption.

You never heard Caesar ask publicly why Steve Geller waited so long to ACTUALLY move into the Broward County Commission District that he's been running for, in order to meet the residency requirements, did you? Nope.
So even while Geller's over on A1A in Hollywood Beach, his wife and kids still live back in Cooper City? Yes.

To me, Caesar is the personification of what scares much-needed high-tech companies and jobs from coming to Broward, since companies that can actually choose where to locate don't want to have to pay-to-play -and they don't.

Closer to home, if you run around in the same bi-polar circles -round and round and round- like the human defamer West Hollywood Dissident or the the one-man hit squad that blogger extraordinaire Chaz Stevens has quite accurately dubbed Hallandale Beach's own little Unabomber, manifesto writer and Political Commissar, Andrew Markoff, well, need I say more?
The political proof is in the pudding -as well as all around you in Broward County.

See also:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.politicsdaily.com/

Wednesday's Broward Ethics Comm. meeting to be webcast

The Broward County Ethics Committee
will be holding a meeting Wednesday from
9:30-11:30 a.m. at County HQ on Andrews Avenue,
but the big news is that the meeting will actually be
webcast.
http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/schedule.htm

The agenda for the meeting is here:
http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/08122009agenda.pdf

Public comments are scheduled for 11 a.m.

As of today, I plan on being there and will bring
along my handy camera/camcorder to capture
any of the human melodrama, wit or comic
oddities that I spot there, if any, while I'm
checking it all out.
Plus any lobbyists that I happen to recognize
in the audience -or behind the curtains.

I called the always-helpful Dee Platt at Comm.
Sue Gunzburger's office yesterday and here's
what Dee wrote back about how to watch the webcast.

If you scroll to the bottom of the Ethics Commission
website, and click on “Live Meetings Webcast”
at the time of the meeting, it will open up a new
window for video central and it will show the
webcast.

http://www.broward.org/ethicscommission/welcome.htm

Ethical problems involving Tallahassee and the cozy
relationships among the powers-that-be and their
pals was the topic du jour about 18 years ago.
Plus, the whole Caesar vs. Ceasar debate.

Miami Herald

SOME LAWMAKERS, LOBBYISTS ENJOYING COZY BUSINESS TIES

From Herald Staff and Wire Reports

August 20, 1991

Twenty-six of Florida's 160 state lawmakers have business relationships or own property with some of the 3,000 lobbyists who represent various interests at the Capitol, state records show.

"It probably is one of the more nagging problems we still have," says Bill Jones, lobbyist for Common Cause of Florida. "If you're out here trying to influence somebody . . . it's another way to ingratiate yourself."

The Tampa Tribune reported Sunday that these relationships take on all sorts of shapes. They include:

* Senate President Gwen Margolis, D-North Miami Beach, who for several years has owned a $70,000 piece of land in Tallahassee with Capitol lobbyist Phial Blank, who has represented several interests in South Florida.

* A few legislators who bought townhouses years ago with fellow legislators or staffers, only to have their roommates go into lobbying.

* A few legislators who work for companies that employ lobbyists -- such as state Sen. Javier Souto, R-Miami, whose employer, Burroughs-Wellcome, has a North Carolina-based lobbyist, John Bowdish, registered in Tallahassee.

They also include relationships which, one of the lawmakers involved concedes, pose ethical questions.

Rep. Norm Ostrau, D-Plantation, who last year fought for ethics reforms, guaranteed a business loan with lobbyist Mitchell Ceasar so their wives could open a cookie shop in The Fashion Mall at Plantation. Ostrau also shares office space with Ceaser in Plantation.

Ceasar's lobbying clients include Port Everglades. However, Ostrau has been one of Broward's most vocal critics of the port's spending practices, and has advocated a takeover by the county.

Yet Ostrau recognizes he probably shouldn't have gotten involved in the business arrangement. The cookie shop was sold after it lost money.

"It's definitely a cozy relationship," Ostrau said. "I didn't think it was something to avoid altogether. I didn't think it was something that would be a problem."

Others say there is nothing wrong with their business relationships:

* Margolis co-owns a $70,000 parcel of Tallahassee property near a golf course with Blank, who represents several clients including Alamo Rent A Car and Amoco Corp. Blank was among the lobbyists who persuaded the Legislature to ante $1 million for a stadium for the Lipton International Tennis Championship on Key Biscayne. Both say their business ties had nothing to do with the legislation.

"I have several million dollars worth of property," says Margolis, a real estate broker. "A little $50,000 lot isn't going to influence me."

Blank: "The fact that she owns a piece of land with me has nothing to do with the way she handles issues I talk to her about."

* Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Sunrise, is a lawyer. In private practice, he was representing Invex, a Dade company forming a community development district. He hired Wade Hopping, a Tallahassee lobbyist, to provide legal advice.

"It's a very technical area of the law. Wade Hopping is the expert on this. He has created more of these than anyone else," Deutsch said. "I honestly do not recall Wade lobbying me in 10 years."

Hopping wrote in a letter to the Legislature's lobbyist registrar: "The business relationship is one separate and apart
from legislative matters and is essentially a straight-forward attorney-client relationship."

* Close friends Rep. Elaine Gordon, D-North Miami, and lobbyist Roberta Fox, who represented South Dade in the Legislature, have jointly owned a Tallahassee townhouse since 1979. During legislative sessions from 1987-89, Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, paid them $25 a day for the use of a sofa-bed in the living room, a report filed by Fox shows. Frankel didn't stay there in 1990, but returned in 1991. She paid no rent this year.

"I do not believe that the value of Rep. Frankel's ability to reside in the townhouse is a gift from me or value from me under the law," Fox wrote to the lobby registrar, "because she in effect is the guest of Rep. Gordon."

As for her own friendship with Fox, Gordon says: "We talk politics. We don't talk on the level of, 'I need your help on a bill.' That's verboten."

* Next door, lobbyist Linda Cox -- a former legislator -- owns a townhouse with longtime friend Rep. Anne Mackenzie, D- Fort Lauderdale. They bought it in 1980, when Mackenzie worked as Cox's legislative aide.

"If I told you how many times we've had that baby on the market so we wouldn't be in the business of owning a townhouse together, you wouldn't believe it," Mackenzie said. "We can't get rid of it."

* Dade lobbyist Ron Book also represents Lipton, among many clients. Book and state Rep. Ron Silver, D-North Miami Beach, have invested together in a company, Linc International, providing information in medical emergencies.

Silver says he had an idea about starting such a company years ago, and when Book found someone starting one he put Silver in touch with them.

Silver says the fact that he supported a state appropriation for the Lipton stadium and numerous other Dade projects has nothing to do with Book. "I supported the Lipton tennis tournament before Ron Book ever got involved as a lobbyist."

Obama's Black & White Cookies in Broward Lack Sufficient Salsa

Was going thru the latest campaign dispatches from our friends at the Central Florida Political Pulse blog of the Orlando Sentinel, and came across the following story on Obama's recent visit to the Deli Den on Sterling Road in next door Hollywood, Breaking news: Obama's off the bus again, posted by Jim Stratton on Oct 21, 2008 4:22:59 PM http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/10/breaking-news-o.html which compelled me to write a response on their website concerning both Black & White Cookies, ethnic voting trends and bad journalism as malpracticed in South Florida in the year 2008, topics which have been on my mind since at least the August primary.
Below is a slightly longer version of that post.
__________________________
Haven't been up to the Deli Den on Stirling Road in two years, but for my money, nobody- but-nobody ever made Black & White cookies as full of sugar-filled delight like the Wolfie's Deli Bakery connected to the Rascal House at NE 163rd Street & NE 14th Avenue in North Miami Beach, across the street from the old 163rd Street Shopping Center. http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/1998-08-13/restaurants/worth-the-wait/

I used to buy those cookies at least twice a week for myself and my friends while walking to my 7 A.M. class at NMB, when I knew we needed an extra bit of energy, especially after late-running Monday Night Football games, back before the VCR changed sleeping patterns of high school students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Miami_Beach_Senior_High_School

Their kitchen's early morning cooking was like an olafactory alarm bell set for 6 A.M, that enveloped the whole neighborhood with the sweet smell of delicious goodies that were now fresh and available. Not unlike the way the Kentucky Fried Chicken on NE 15th Avenue did in the afternoon on the way home, making it impossible to walk home without thinking of chicken.

Though I lived four blocks south of there on NE 159th Street, on windy days that smell would come wafting down the street and hit me like a hammer the moment I stepped out of the house, as I made my way to JFK Junior High or North Miami Beach Senior High School, and I know it had the same effect on other neighborhood kids.


Though I and the other kids who lined-up inside Wolfie's to place our order would always say we'd wait 'till we got to school to start munching them, I'd usually give in to tempation and start munching while I was walking thru the empty 163rd Street Shopping Center on my way to school, somewhere just past the front of the Burdine's I worked at, along the side of the two-story J.C. Penney's and then down the steps of the back of Penney's and thru the massive parking lot/bus Dade bus depot on the NW corner of the shopping center, across the street from the two schools I was at from 1973-'79.

I think I could still walk that route with my eyes closed if it were there, so many thousands of times times did I walk that route to school, sporting events, plays and concerts.



Even as the national MSM, Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami-based local TV continue their chronic mis-adventures in political mis-representation and LCD reporting, they NEVER ask pointed questions of well-known Broward political leaders like Dem honcho and lobbyist Mitch Caesar, on why Broward Jewish Dems in their condo strongholds CONSISTENTLY refuse to vote and support well-qualified Hispanic-surnamed candidates, as if it's not completely predictable that this'll result in bad social and political consequences for everyone here in Broward in the future.

I've heard Caesar say that Hispanics were supposed to a "growth target" for Broward Dems, but you sure don't make yourself more attractive when you just wink at this troubling voting trend, as if nobody else around notices it.
We do.


Maybe it's yet another manifestation of how truly sorry the South Florida media is down here in the year 2008, that the reporters, editors and news directors are much more afraid of losing access to him and his pithy comments, than they are to subjecting him to the sort of tough questioning they'd give anyone else, especially a businessman.


Meanwhile, the Central Florida Political Pulse continues "keeping it real" by taking names and calling 'em as they see 'em.



Frankly, I get more honest insight from their daily CFPP blog posts on the myriad ups and downs all over the state, than anything the Herald, Sun-Sentinel or local TV mis-reports, since they continue to treat Central Florida and the rest of the state with the worst kind of know-it-all attitude, witness their positively dreadful reporting on the Second Amendment, guns & Walt Disney World story, or their lack of reporting on the many political problems associated with creating a smart, useful and well-managed Central Florida commuter train, along with the CSX Corp. and Trial Lawyers angle tossed in for good measure.


(To refresh yourself on that issue, see my July 3rd post, Where's the Disney story in the Miami Herald?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/wheres-disney-story-in-miami-herald.html and the Orlando Sentinel story that got to the heart of the matter, Walt Disney World fires back on guns at work by Scott Powers and Jason Garcia
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-disneyguns0308jul03,0,197883.story

The Herald's first story was an AP dispatch on July 3rd, followed by a superficial six-sentence AP follow-up on July 9th about WDW firing an employee. It wasn't until July 11th, eight days after the story broke, that an actual Herald reporter -Marc Caputo- wrote anything about the story. Disney's gun stance draws fire - Walt Disney World said its employees are exempt from a law that lets workers keep guns in their cars.
So that's how the state's largest newspaper covers the largest private employer in the state!)


For all of South Florida's often valid complaints about the parochial, shallow and and simplistic way the national media misreports the positive and negative realities of social and political life in South Florida to the rest of the nation and the world, their two largest newspapers do their own dwindling number of readers no favors by treating the rest of the state as a neverending source of "oddities" to be mocked, forever painting it with the same broad, stereotype-heavy brush full of condescendsion that their own columnists decry when the focus is on us.



Thank goodness for the Central Florida Political Pulse!http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/