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Monday, July 22, 2013

More news re Florida elected officials living outside their districts & residency requirements: disingenuous South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board FINALLY writes about this ethical issue that it, editor Rosemary Goudreau and her editorial page writers have completely ignored for YEARS, inc. the case of Joe Gibbons and his strange family living situation; FL Senate Ethics chairman Jack Latvala won't be deterred and wants cold hard facts about pols who intentionally broke state laws

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WPLG-TV/Channel 10 (Miami, FL) Editorial: Lawmakers should live where constituents live. 
By Dave Boylan, Channel 10 Vice President and General Manager,
Published July 1 2013 10:56:12 AM EDT
Updated On: Jul 01 2013 11:03:34 AM EDT
http://www.local10.com/station/elected-officials-should-live-where-constituents-live/-/1716906/20785606/-/w1ttqnz/-/index.html


Local10's Bob Norman reports: Elected officials welcome investigation into where they live
Florida Gov Rick Scott investigating whether politicians living in their districts
Published On: July 18 2013 05:09:30 PM EDT   
Updated On: July 19 2013 12:44:21 PM EDT
http://www.local10.com/news/elected-officials-welcome-investigation-into-where-they-live/-/1717324/21037320/-/clnmte/-/index.html
More news re Florida elected officials living outside their districts & residency requirements: disingenuous South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board FINALLY writes about this ethical issue that it, editor Rosemary Goudreau and her editorial page writers have completely ignored for YEARS, inc. the case of Joe Gibbons and his strange family living situation; FL Senate Ethics chairman Jack Latvala won't be deterred and wants cold hard facts about pols who intentionally broke state laws
My comments are after this very curious and years over-due editorial.



South Florida Sun-Sentinel 
Editorial Board
Resolve question on where politicians must sleep
July 21, 2013

Since becoming the state senator for a newly drawn district covering parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties last year, Sen. Maria Sachs has accomplished quite a bit.

She helped secure $82 million for Broward College, up from $71 million the previous year. She helped land $1.5 million for the new medical school at Florida Atlantic University. And she helped pass the ban on texting while driving, with plans to try to toughen the law next year.

There's just one thing Sachs hasn't done. She hasn't moved — full-time — into her new district. Rather, she continues to reside mostly at her long-time Boca Raton home, just across the road from the new district she now represents.

Read the rest of the editorial at:

So what was NOT mentioned at all above by South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial page editor Rosemary Goudreau and her South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board?

The same one that has NEVER written one word about the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal, either before or after the Broward Inspector General started their investigation and their damning report calling-out the city's serial "gross mismanagement"?

1.) why the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board, collectively and individually, as well as their so-called news reporters, has ignored the self-evident residency requirements violations known by many people in Broward for YEARS, and even worse, has seemingly gone out of its way to NOT mention it, perhaps because of ideological reasons.

That's especially the case with Senior Editorial Writer Douglas C. Lyons who has written only glowing and positive things about Joe Gibbons and Perry Thurston., two of the six FL legislators with a Broward connection whose living arrangements seem to be less than kosher and keeping with the spirit of the Florida Constitution.

Try to find anything with Lyons name on it that mentions the ethical questions involving them or the others.
No, seriously, try to find one.
There's not a single one.

But there is one from 2010 about Lyons suggesting that Gibbons become head of the FL Democratic Party 
This one:
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
WHY NOT JOE GIBBONS AS CHAIR OF FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY?
Posted by Doug Lyons on November 10, 2010 09:18 AM

 He may not appreciate me using his name as a trial balloon, but here goes ...

 I believe the Florida Democratic Party needs a shot of new blood. So I'm throwing out a name to replace the current party chair, Karen Thurman, since everyone else is. My choice would be state Rep. Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach. 

 Gibbons brings badly needed energy, something the state's demoralized and darn near moribund political party needs desperately. He can also raise money, something he's done during his brief stint as chair of the state's Legislative Black Caucus. 

 Gibbons' business background -- made his mark in sales -- should help in that stead, whether he's talking to potential funders in South Florida or along the I-4 corridor. Gibbon's had experience at fundraising. He's raised money for Alex Sink's losing bid for governor and as former chair of the state's Legislative Black Caucus, he brought money to the group it hadn't seen before. 

 Gibbon's got enough legislative cred, having served on some of the House's major committees and having worked with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. 

 He'd also help the party with its "base" problem with African American voters. Not only would he be a fresh face, but he has the smarts to help pick and groom candidates to actually appeal to all elements of the party's constituents. 

 For the record, Gibbons is supporting Thurman, someone he has worked well with in recent years. Should Thurman decide to leave her post, the party should consider Gibbons as its point man. 


 Joe Gibbons and his campaign staff could hardly have written it better themselves.

I know this because I've heard the same curious questions about Gibbons for years that everyone else in Hallandale Beach and southeast Broward has, the reasonable questions that never seem to get good logical answers from him in public.

 Still, I'm hardly unique in that respect, just someone who pays close attention to what's going on, and someone with a blog where I can raise questions publicly and give voice to others who are very curious about things that don't add up or pass the smell test.

It's hard to ignore the fact that someone who claims to live in Broward County fulltime actually has as their non-legislative job, one not down here, but actually up in Tallahassee.
It's also hard to ignore the fact that his wife and her job and their kids, until recently moving to Lakeland, lived in Jacksonville, NOT in South Florida with him.

I know because I've followed the issue for years because of my suspicions about Gibbons' 
integrity and have repeatedly gone thru the paper's digital archives actually looking for examples of them mentioning it that I may've somehow missed.
They ignored it as a serious issue until just a few months ago.

So, tell me, how is it that despite all the years this pathetic and rather self-serving charade has been going on, Doug Lyons and Rosemary Goudreau and the Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board NEVER noticed it or mentioned it in print?
Until today.

That independent research I've done over the years is why I know that -Teaser Alert for a future blog post- per my previous comments on the blog and these emails about so much of the South Florida press corps' sleepwalking, despite all the grumbling the Sun-Sentinel and their Editorial Board and some of its columnists have done re Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, in 2006, the first full year it was in effect, the Sun-Sentinel only mentioned it in a news article or column... ONCE.
Really.

Not 20 times not a dozen times, not even a half-dozen times.
They mentioned it a grad total of once -on December 10th, 2006, the 50th week of the year,
Yes, that's really quite a testimony to their public concern!

2.) Also, not mentioned above in today's editorial is the residency requirement scandal dogging Broward County Comm. Dale Holness, whose ethical situation is just as egregious as the five state legislators.
To many Broward voters, especially the ones who are represented by him, the ethical cloud over Holness is actually more in-your-face to the public and voters, since he's easier to monitor if Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz  and his Public Corruption unit were actually so inclined.
But they aren't inclined to actually investigate, are they?

Where have you seen any mention of Satz's name and office in any of the recent reporting or public discussion on any of this?
Where's CBS4 News and NBC-6 News and & 7 News and the Miami Herald in any of this?
They're ALL missing-in-action, just like the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board has been all these years, sitting on the sidelines while hundreds of thousands of Broward voters got the shaft.

3.) What is also, curiously, NOT mentioned above in the editorial, but important nonetheless for the most obvious reasons, though known to you if you received my prior email about this subject?
Oh, that's right, Sen. Jack Latvala is the Chairman of the Senate Ethics &Elections Comm.

How does the newspaper's Editorial Board NOT mention that at all?
Well, now maybe you can sense how truly myopic the paper's management and editors have been and are.
----

Links re residency requirements or Joe Gibbons' living situation


JULY 18, 2013
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?

JULY 12, 2013
More from Local10's Bob Norrman on the epidemic in Broward County of elected officials living outside districts they represent, contrary to the FL Constitution; FL state Senator Jack Latvala, Chair of Senate's Ethics & Elections Comm., will NOT tolerate this blatant corruption and wants investigations launched into these illegal actions right now!; And let's not forget FL state Rep. Joe Gibbons' strange views on raising a family -putting an elective office ABOVE living full-time with your own kids!

JULY 5, 2013
More on Broward County politicians' residency ruse: Is intentionally violating & evading the Florida Constitution 'the new normal' for ethical standards in the Sunshine State? Latest facts & chronology regarding at least 5 Florida legislators from Broward -and one Broward Commissioner- who DON'T live full-time in the districts they were elected to represent

JULY 2, 2013
Is Kristin Jacobs poised to become 'the last straw' and the cynical face for voters of the ever-expanding Broward candidate residency scandal? Yet MORE residency problems in Broward County per Media Tracker Florida: Jacobs wants to run for FL House 96 while living in House 93, even while convincing evidence suggests that at least 5 current members of the Broward Legislative Delegation may be knowingly breaking state law, practically daring Broward State's Attorney Mike Satz & Co. to actually do something; Videos by Local10 investigative reporter Bob Norman show he's NOT afraid to go after South Florida's unethical pols and ask the hard questions

MAY 29, 2013
Unexpected good news for supporters of Beam Furr's candidacy -look at all the "Usual Suspects" of Broward endorsing feckless, ineffectual, business-as-usual Joe Gibbons for County Commission. Gibbons, the pol who STILL can't answer basic questions about his real job, where he lives and why his life is SO VERY complicated, with a straight face. His job, his wife and his kids are ALL located elsewhere, so are the only things keeping him in Broward his own ego and ambition? How did such a mediocre pol get such lofty ideas about himself? Now THERE'S a question!; same as for Alexander Lewy now that you mention it

May 5, 2013
Calling all Carpetbaggers! Repeat after me, "Requirements, what residency requirements?" Carpetbaggers in South Florida have it easy compared to their cousins in Calif. due to the lack of serious reporters here, but in both places, carpetbagging and ethnic identity politics often go hand-in-hand; LA Times: "Does this man live in San Gabriel or not? A residency challenge prompts council members to hold their own hearing -with sworn witnesses- to decide if the No. 2 vote-getter should be seated"; Is that a preview of things to come in North Miami Beach, where a Miramar resident named Dargenson is running for NMB City Commission, and thinks she'll win -largely because she's Haitian-American?

JUNE 17, 2012
Today, on Father's Day, where are FL Rep. Joseph "Joe" Gibbons' children celebrating with him? Likely up in the Jacksonville area where they all live, NOT in Broward County where he pretends he lives full-time

March 9, 2012 
2012 Florida Legislature to end on Friday without EVER examining carpetbagger Joe Gibbons' faux residency -he's NOT a permanent Broward County resident anymore.

APRIL 21, 2011
Elaine de Valle's Political Cortadito blog channels Sherlock Holmes and catches the crook red-handed: FL Rep. Frank Artiles. Blogger 1, Lying Pol 0
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Sunday, July 21, 2013

What happened to all that Hope and Change? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin hammers the point home with precision re our condescending president: "President Obama’s sad view of America"; To quote Shakespeare, "Alas, 'tis true."

What happened to all that Hope and Change? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin hammers the point home with precision re our condescending president: "President Obama’s sad view of America"; To quote Shakespeare, "Alas, 'tis true." 

 Rubin's closing packs a wallop: 
The president at the very end argued that "those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions." Too bad he doesn’t follow his own advice.
But then after four-plus years, wouldn't the real surprise be that Obama did DO that?

 The Washington Post
Right Turn blog
President Obama’s sad view of America
By Jennifer Rubin
Published: July 19, 2013 at 5:26 pm
President Obama’s extensive remarks in the White House Briefing Room this afternoon were as surprising as they were gratuitous. He had already made one statement asking citizens to respect the George Zimmerman verdict. Today he did so again but offered no specific policy recommendation with regard to race (although he used it as a forum to assail “stand-your-ground” legislation that ultimately was not at issue in the case).
In fact, Obama undid some of the closure he provided in his earlier written statement by intoning: “If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.” So the jury was biased? The trial unfair? I can’t fathom why the president of the United States would stoke that sort of second-guessing.
Read the rest of the post at

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Saturday, July 20, 2013

Csaba Kulin's spot-on email about the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal to HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders re Sanders' refusal to vote (twice!) to do the right thing for HB taxpayers and small business owners, and instead, vote to help Mayor Joy Cooper and Comm. Alexander Lewy in their desperate attempt to avoid a full public accounting for where ALL the millions of CRA dollars really went

Above, civic activist Csaba Kulin on his balcony, shortly before we recorded some videos that you will soon start seeing here on the blog. The binders on the table are full of City of Hallandale Beach documents and research information csaba has spent many months putting together regarding the city's VERY, VERY CURIOUS pension plan that pays (will pay) a select group of former and current top employees, including the past three City Managers -R.J. Intindola, Mike Good & Mark A. Antonio- for their past service at a MUCH-HIGHER rate than what they actually earned it at. That very crucial and very expensive decision will cost HB taxpayers millions of dollars MORE than it should, and yet even today, years after-the-fact, the City of Hallandale Beach STILL can't or won't say publicly who made the decision and produce the documentation. No, Csaba and I haven't forgotten about that pension scandal one bit. March 22, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2014 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

 My friend and fellow Hallandale Beach and Broward County civic activist Csaba Kulin wrote a short and spot-on email last week that I wanted to share with you today that's a continuation of the pro-reform thoughts of this community in blog posts I've written recently about the Hallandale Beach CRA scandal.

 A scandal that will not be brushed away like HB Mayor Joy Cooper desperately wants, so she doesn't have to be personally accountable to the public for what has happened here for years with her in charge all the while.
Mayor Cooper is in heavy-duty 'spin' mode, and I haven't even told you yet anout her new PR gambit, which will be the subject of a future post here.

 Csaba's email was sent to Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders re Sanders' abject refusal to vote (twice!) to do the right thing for HB taxpayers and small business owners, and finally get them some long-overdue accountability on the HB CRA that has wasted millions of dollars, most of it in NW HB, including voting AGAINST an audit of the HB CRA by the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, JLAC.

 But instead of doing the right thing, Sanders twice voted the wrong way and actually had the gall to preen up on the dais and mock residents at last wednesday night's CRA Board meeting for more of them not speaking that night.

 Typical cynical and Sanders attitude showing not only his stupidity, but his continuing lack of respect for the citizens of this community that he's supposed to work for, NOT that Sanders has ever shown a strong work ethic in the past or even worked very hard at being properly prepared for meetings, since he often appears confused about what's happening -and it's no act, no matter how much he tries to make it seem like he's just lying in wait, being impatient. 

 No, it's nothing of the sort, it's just sheer laziness and a lack of resolve and backbone to do the sort of responsible job anyone in his position is expected to do -provide oversight and hold people accountable
It's NOT exactly Breaking News that Comm. Anthony A. Sanders doesn't want to do either one of these, he just wants to go around town being a commissioner, like it's a ceremonial position or something.

 It's typical of Sanders lack of attention to detail that the simple fact is that HB citizens were NOT allowed to speak after they'd heard the staff or CRA Directors talk about the two matters on the CRA Board agenda or even what they wanted to do, only BEFORE anything was ever said or publicly presented.

 So in this respect, Sanders' disrespectful remarks to the public at large as well as the ones in the room sitting before him was entirely in keeping with the bad reputation he's earned over six years for NOT being smart, prepared or attentive to detail at meetings, but rather oblivious and inarticulate, and that's putting it mildly.

 NOT that the South Florida news media ever publicly mentions this self-evident fact about Sanders when they show up -if they show up.

 Yes, after witnessing the stunts Sanders pulled at last week's CRA meeting, you seriously wonder how in the world he ever fooled so many people into voting for him when you see how truly clueless he is, and unwilling to accept personal responsibility for his own actions and words.

 So clueless, that when actually presented with a golden opportunity for two easy lay-ups, Sanders balks and plays defense for Mayor Cooper and Comm. Alexander Lewy, neither of whom want a full public accounting for where all those HB CRA dollars went while they -and Sanders- were the majority of the City Commission, and playing Santa Claus.

 -----
Commissioner Sanders,
I am very disappointed in the outcome of Wednesday night’s HB/HBCRA Board of Directors meeting. There were two very reasonable, common sense changes to the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee (JLAC) response and both failed due to the lack of your support. Comm. Julian and Lazarow not only talked the talk, they walked the walk. They needed your support to succeed but they did not get it.     
The first one was to request JLAC to perform a complete audit of the HBCRA and return any money improperly spent to the CRA Trust Fund.
It is in the best interest of every resident of the CRA district. You would want every penny put back into the CRA Trust Fund which was improperly spent by anyone. How can you NOT support that?
Knocking on doors last fall, when I asked, hundreds of residents could not name any significant results of the 70 million spent by the CRA in the last 15 years. Apparently you do NOT want to know and you do NOT want anyone else in the CRA district to know where all the money went. Can you explain to why?
The second item you did NOT support was to ask the Florida Attorney General for an opinion as to the proper type of expenditures a CRA can make using CRA funds according to Chapter 163 of the Florida Statutes.
The question is, do you want the CRA to function as a Community Redevelopment Agency or something the Mayor or City Manager decides to function as? You do not support the motion to reduce the City Manager’s spending authority of 25 or 50 thousand dollars. Detailed financial reports are not on the City’s web site. We do not know most of the details what is going on at City Hall. We find out most details by chance.
Do want the CRA to function as the Mayor’s “cookie jar”? If she likes you, if you go along with her, you get a few cookies. If she does not like you, you get nothing with a dose of abuse. The anger and the poisonous venom coming from her voice over the phone last night is telling of her and her management style. Maybe you did not want to face that music?     
If I was in your shoes, I listen to what the Florida Attorney General has to say, not only the “hired guns” of the Mayor. Remember, AG’s opinion is free and carries a lot of weight.
I do not have to tell you that the battle for better government does not stop here. There are just too many good people working very hard to make the long needed changes in Hallandale Beach. I am sorry to see that you do not seem to one of them.
I do not want to sound overly harsh or accusatory toward you but you must understand the frustration I feel about the way our city’s leadership is treating us and handling our affairs.
Sincerely,
Csaba Kulin 
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Friday, July 19, 2013

Where's Marco Rubio? Like me -but unlike the sleepwalking South Florida news media- blogger extraordinaire Mickey Kaus has not only noticed that Team Rubio has gone silent on immigration and wants to talk about everything BUT that, he's focusing like a laser on it. That's not by accident. 67% of GOP voters who oppose a "path to legal status" say they could not vote 4 someone who disagreed on that issue!; @kausmickey, #RubiosFolly






As I told you all last month in my multiple blog posts about Marco Rubio's lack of tweets about immigration -but about the Miami Heat- and the Miami Herald's self-evident and heavy-handed censorship for well over two weeks of all references, in-print and in their blogs, re Ryan Lizza's excellent New Yorker piece on the Schumer-Rubio bill, the Gang of Eight and Marco Rubio and his staff re the pro-amnesty bill that emerged.
And censorship of any articulate, fact-filled negative comments about the bill. 
Nope, nothing about Florida's agribusiness industry hungering for more low-cost labor and how much they were spending to make it happen.

Los Angeles-based blogger Mickey Kaus, long one of my favorites since I was living and working in the D.C. area and he was at Slate, and now writing at The Daily Caller website, is one of the many people I shared this bits of news with around the country.
Some didn't know about it, some had heard but hadn't seen any actual evidence.
Then I dropped some fact-filled evidence on them via email.

 Over the past few weeks, as only Mickey Kaus can so consistently, with insightful reporting and good humor, well-timed sarcasm and a knack for saying today what others will be saying tomorrow, via his very popular Twitter feed and blog, he has reminded us all again that, surprise, "Team Rubio really has gone silent on immigration"













































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Thursday, July 18, 2013

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.
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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Just to prove a point that I've proven so many times in the past on this blog: Snapshot of the Twitter feed of the Miami Herald shows its complete obliviousness to Broward County and the people who live there -like me; @MiamiHerald, @MindyMarques, @rickhirsch


Just to prove a point that I've proven so many times in the past on this blog: Snapshot of the Twitter feed of the Miami Herald shows its complete obliviousness to Broward County and the people who live there -like me; @MiamiHerald, @MindyMarques, @rickhirsch
Above is a snapshot of the Miami Herald's obliviousness to Broward County, the land it treats like terra incognita in its new HQ in Doral -on the way to all the dumped bodies in The Everglades- even more so than when they were in downtown Miami and lumped Broward in with The Keys edition, withy older news, even though the Broward edition was printed in Broward.

At the top are the tweets appearing on the Miami Herald's Twitter page as of 6:16 p.m. on Monday night.

How many do you think have to go thru before coming across the second reference to a person, place, issue or topic that is of particular relevance to Broward County and the people who live here?
What's your guess?

The correct answer is 63.
62 tweets before the second item of particular relevance to Broward residents comes up.

The next time you get a phone call from a Herald reporter or editor, you ought to ask them
if they're sure they really meant to call someone in far-off Broward County.

If you're interested in seeing all the tweets that came before it, drop me a line and I will send it to you.
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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Some Spy programs are good for the country and some are bad. But 'Covert Affairs' and Piper Perabo's 'Annie Walker,' well, that was LOVE at first sight! (And very good for USA!) Season 4 of Covert Affairs, now with Hill Harper, starts tonight at 9 p.m. on USA network, DirecTV Channel 242; @CovertAffairs, @PiperPerabo, @TheKariMatchett

CovertAffairsOnUSA YouTube Channel video: Covert Affairs, Season 4 - "Vamos," Previously On Covert Affairs -Season 3 recap. Uploaded July 12, 2013. http://youtu.be/DxAEF0v_Rq0

 'Covert Affairs' and Annie Walker are back tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, and she's going undercover in Columbia, so we'll break out the good pizza and beer for tonight and tape the MLB All-Star Game for viewing afterwards. 
(Repeat episode is at 12:07 a.m. Eastern.)
We have to have our priorities straight, after all.
CovertAffairsOnUSA YouTube Channel video: Covert Affairs, Season 4 - Sneak Peek, Uploaded July 12, 2013. http://youtu.be/bWBBGaZtYo4
The Hollywood Reporter
'Covert Affairs' Bosses Preview Annie/Auggie's Romance, New Blood and 'Darker' Season 4
by Philiana Ng, 
7:00 AM PDT 7/15/2013 

















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Opening credit sequence of NBC-TV's "I SPY" starring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby; iconic music composed by Earle Hagen, who won the Emmy Award for it.
The TV spy program we watched when we were young-and-impressionable, wanted the newest and coolest gadgets to fight evil and evil regimes... back before there were blogs that needed careful tending and persuasive and enthusiastic writing.

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More 'Covert Affairs' videos at: https://www.youtube.com/user/CovertAffairsOnUSA/

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Monday, July 15, 2013

More bad MSM analysis of Marco Rubio 2016 and immigration reform that includes the usual convenient forgetting of facts/polls that disagree with the central thesis of both La Raza and the GOP Consulting Class. Wow, this is getting tiresome! Jill Lawrence in National Journal: The Myth of Marco Rubio’s Immigration Problem; what's NOT a myth is Miami Herald's recent censorship of criticism of Rubio over immigration reform, esp. Ryan Lizza essay






My comments are after the frustrating column in Beltway Conventional Wisdom at bottom.

 I know I can't be the only former Democrat who voted for Marco Rubio for U.S. Senate
in the 2010 Florida primary and general election who will publicly admit that he's unqualified
to be President or Veep in 2016, and who also think he's wrong on immigration.
The one thing I know that GOP pollster Whit Ayres can't seem to accept is that Marco Rubio can't possibly do anything in the future politically without votes from voters like me.
If voters like me ever turn on him for good...

-----
The National Journal
The Myth of Marco Rubio’s Immigration Problem
He’s taking heat for supporting a path to citizenship. 
But almost every other GOP 2016 prospect does too.
By Jill Lawrence
July 15, 2013 | 6:00 a.m.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is losing altitude with some conservatives because he’s the Republican face of immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Yet he’ll have a lot of company in the 2016 field if he runs for the GOP presidential nomination.
In fact almost every Republican weighing a 2016 race – from Jeb Bush and Chris Christie to Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal – favors some path to citizenship like the one in the comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate, or is open to a variation of it.
Read the rest of the column at:

This is unintentionally funny, that is, if you think biased or uneven reporting is funny, given  that like a 1,001 of these media pieces on Marco Rubio the last few weeks,  The  National Journal's Jill Lawrence never actually talks to a serious and articulate person who is actually against Schumer-Rubio and who can make the case that there is a lot everyone can agree on and it's precisely THOSE policies of agreement that should be done FIRST on immigration 
reform, and the Gang of Eight prescription of a path to citizenship is NOT one of things that a majority of Americans agree.

But when confronted with that fact and numerous polls in all parts of the country showing this,
Rubio and the rest of the Gang, along with their various sycophants and proxies in the news media, Think Tanks and the Beltway GOP Consulting Establishment, esp. those with a tie to big-time corporate Agribusiness, want to grab their football and run home -and sulk.

And send email to supposedly-conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks about how unfair it all is that some voters in the country, especially the active GOP grassroots, are openly resistant to the demands of the GOP Beltway Crowd that this should be rammed thru or swallowed whole, despite the fact that its own supporters clearly haven't read it all and even now still can't explain all its ramifications to well-prepped reporters with a straight face.
Which, last time I checked, is what one of the public's principal criticisms of Obamacare were.
Correctly as we all know now.

Of course, like all those other pieces on Marco Rubio that have run the past few weeks that are almost always largely pro-Rubio -even if they do feel the occasional need for PR purposes to rap his knuckles or take him to task for some element of his amnesty position that doesn't please La Raza, Univision or the Democratic left- Jill Lawrence's 
conscious choice to NOT speak to someone smart and knowledgeable about what's going-on like Mickey Kaus, who can make that logical and persuasive counter-argument that includes Border protection, and do it in an interesting and informative way, Lawrence makes it much-easier for her to write her column.
And in the end, isn't that what's really most important to her?!









The one person she does quote a lot, GOP consultant Whit Ayres, seems to me to be laboring under one very large false illusion, and it's a sign of how disconnected so much of the GOP Consulting Class is that this can happen without someone who knows him grabbing him by the lapels and snapping him out of zombie-like trance chanting counter-intuitive nostrums about why it's correct for this bad piece of legislation to get passed the way he and the GOP Establishment want -expecting any new-ish group of voters in the future to be "thankful" to the GOP for passing it is preposterous and shows no understanding of either human or voting behavior in this country.

 But then what are we to make of this?
It’s not a given that Republicans will lose if they stay the course. Those who are well funded, strong in their convictions, and persuasive on the stump might just prevail. Defiance might be worth a try, since the stakes are kind of big: constructive governance and the future of the Republican Party.
Funny, Jill Lawrence herself wrote that.
But she didn't write it within the context of the immigration story, even though it would be true, perhaps more so than any other issue.

 Nope, she wrote this back in March, and the title that The National Journal came up for that tells you everything you need to know about the way she views the world, making her piece today seem all the more predictable:

Republicans Need to Think for Themselves, Even in Election Years
The GOP will never get fixed if its candidates keep running scared from primary challenges
By Jill Lawrence
Updated: May 30, 2013 | 12:31 a.m., March 4, 2013 | 11:22 a.m.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/republicans-need-to-think-for-themselves-even-in-election-years-20130304

 Call me crazy but my intuition based on actually paying attention to what happens in this country is that those future new permanent residents-turned voters will walk into the voting booth in their town's city hall or rec center or Senior's Center and calmly vote against Ayres' GOP candidates and not think about it twice.

Meanwhile, Ayres will still be trying to talk his failed candidates off a ledge by rationalizing the bad decision he made, as if that will do any good to his defeated candidates, after-the-fact, like they were sacrifices to appease the PC media gods.
And the candidates will remind him that he never said anything BEFORE th election about them being sacrifices, since they were paying him full-price.

It's all so very predictable, even without benefit of my handy Time Machine, but as usual, instead of someone with moxie like Kaus, who isn't afraid to fire back, it's pro-amnesty Establishment GOP Ayres whom Lawrence decides to make the conscience of her piece, which is why he'll still keep getting quoted in the future, no matter how wrong he is and illogical his analysis proves to be for years in retrospect.

This situation with Ayres is the precisely the sort of thing that, whatever else is wrong with American sports and the sports media punditocracy these days, and there's a lot, it shows that it is much more self-correcting than the world of political consulting and broadcast/print punditry.

Sometime, like a MLB pitcher with an un-hittable fastball who never learned to adapt and develop any other consistent pitches in crucial situations that could get strikes and not be hit in the air, a pundit just loses their honed intuition.
That's it -the end. 

An Ayres could not last for very long on Fox Sports game day coverage of the NFL or even ESPN/ABC's stranglehold of college football game day coverage, by consistently being wrong about what happened and what will happen next.
But because Ayres has been inoculated by a member in good standing of the MSM, he'll continue to be able to sound-off on politics with reporters from outlets all over the country with no idea of his poor judgment and analysis.
It's our New Normal.

And if you still haven't read the great Ryan Lizza essay on Rubio and the Gang of Eight's bill that the Miami Herald consciously prevented from ever being publicly mentioned in print by their reporters or in their blogs, as I wrote about last month a few times, see:

 The New Yorker
GETTING TO MAYBE
Inside the Gang of Eight’s immigration deal.
BY RYAN LIZZA
JUNE 24, 2013
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