FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
#22juli - Trying hard not to think too much about today being the 6th Anniversary of the #Utøya Massacre and the #Oslo bombing. But still... #Norway #Norge #mittlilleland
The message to reporters in the outside world: ”Du behöver komma till Utöya. Det är döda barn överallt.” Den meningen glömmer jag aldrig. ( "You need to come to Utöya. There are dead children everywhere." I never forget that sentence.) - SVT's Carina Bergfeldt last year, on the Fifth Anniversary
On July 22nd, 2011, even before the TV news cameras and helicopters of the world arrived, there was already an idea in Stockholm at Aftonbladet of how terrible it truly was. And they printed it. And I copied it because it was one of the few things I could share with friends about how bad everything was, when rumors were flying abut how many people might've been behind the twin attacks. Six years later, the words linger in my mind:
”Ring inte ön"”
En varningstweet spreds om att låta bli att ringa de som gömde sig på Utøya, eftersom gärningsmannen fortsatte skjuta under lång tid.
"RING INTE FOLK PÅ UTØYA. De gömmer sig för gärningsmannen. Kopiera statusen! (Ambulansen kommer inte fram ertersom det fortfarande är skottlossning)."
Do not call the island on your mobile as fake cop re-loading gun in search of children to shoot, is listening for rings from phones.
(Ambulances won't arrive if shooting is happening.)
This film is honest and heartbreaking in so many ways that few films you've ever seen in your life can be, because you know as you watch it and get a sense of what daily life was like at this idyllic Norwegian island camp during the summer, that so many of the very bright and politically-ambitious teenagers and twenty-somethings you will see here, smiling and laughing, never got off the island alive. This film proves a level of understanding that simply reading endless news stories and analyses can't hope to provide.
I wrote many contemporaneous blog posts on the horrors of the #Utøya Massacre and the #Oslo bombing, as well as the subsequent nationally-televised memorial ceremonies one month later and in the years since. Please check the blog's archives for those posts, being sure to use the search terms Utøya, Oslo and minneseremoni
#Ethics - More context, facts and fall-out to consider re Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders' "misconduct" in office, per Broward Inspector General. Naturally, Sanders being Sanders, he views the public finally learning all the facts about what he has been doing in office as “an assassination on my character.” Surprise!
What follows below is an updated version of an email that I sent out LAST Wednesday morning before Noon regarding the then-latest breaking news from the office of John W. Scott, the Broward Inspector General, regarding what most well-informed people in this area of South Florida have long considered to be the the longstanding, self-evident unethical behavior and actions of Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders. I sent it out to roughly 175 interested parties ecompassing citizens, journalists, civic groups and state legislators throughout Broward County, South Florida and the Sunshine State. That is to say, sent it to selected email inboxes of well-informed people thoroughout the State of Florida who have an abiding and longstanding personal and or professional interest in seeing to it that the government that is closest to the people in Florida, the municipal level, is NOT, in the end, simply a stealthy transference of wealth between a community's citizens and taxpayers to its elected officials and bureaucrats. A members-only ATM for insiders who know how to fix or finesse the system they are supposed to be providing oversight over on behalf of... the People. But what do you do when someone is perfectly willing to brazenly break the spirit and letter of ordinances, laws and basic morality in order to get their way, whatever that might be? Someone who, basically, calls the bluff of civil society and law enforcement in Broward County, and literally dares any one of them to stop him from doing what he wants to do and will keep doing? Someone like Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders.
The people who received that email of mine last Wednesday, and prior emails over the years regarding Comm. Sanders and his actions, are serious people of substance, purpose and public influence. And what they also have in common, to varying extents, is being more than a little aware of the longstanding public corruption and financial chicanery that has taken place at Hallandale Beach City Hall for years, often in the person of Comm. Sanders. Thanks in large part to my efforts over the years to publicize things on this blog and via the South Florida news media, as well as a handful of hard-working, high-minded friends who have wanted nothing less than for Hallandale Beach to FINALLY be a better, smarter, safer and better-managed community, not the public laughingstock it has been for many years under notoriously thin-skinned Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper. To repeat the unhappy truth that I have written here so many times before today, literally, a reality where many South Florida print and TV reporters "joke" about how truly bad the state of things were and are in HB, and then use that as their own reason not to get involved and actually REPORT the facts and context of what's going on in HB, because, afterall, "that's just Hallandale Beach."
For those of you who are new to this fact-based bIog, I'm glad you came by to check it out today and get some more important facts on this matter regarding public corruption, as well as important context and nuance to better make sense of it all. You should bear in mind as you read this that over the past ten years I have written DOZENS of fact-filled blog posts here about the VERY curious and dysfunctional actions and behavior of Comm. Sanders, connecting-the-dots on how VERY SHORT he has come up in the public's estimation on so many important areas of the job, compared to both what the community has a right to reasonably expect in an elected official -like actually doing your homework and being familiar with the facts being discussed on the dais for one thing!- and more importantly, what the community needed to see up on the dais in the way of resolve and fidelity to public accountability, oversight and transparency. Over-and-over, Comm. Sanders has come up woefully short and usually been just about the least-informed person in the entire Commission Chambers when an issue or policy was being discussed, analyzed or voted upon, whether in his role as a City Commissioner or as a CRA Board Member. But that unfortunate reality, that burden that Hallandale Beach's residents and Small Business owners have had to carry for so long, has never prevented the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board from endorsing Sanders, owing to their longstanding pledge to support diversity on the dais, even if it comes at the risk of complete incompetency. What the Hallandale Beach community got in Sanders was entirely predictable, someone who felt entitled to do whatever he wanted, and to ignore rules and public expectations he found either troublesome or cumbersome. I was one of a handful of people in this area who called it publicly many, many years ago, within days and weeks of him being apppointed to the HB City Commission under strange circumstances that were entirely contrary to the city's own written procedures. But the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's liberal Editorial Board has never let self-evident facts-on-the-ground regarding Comm. Sanders performance in office get in the way of their efforts to make sure that he was on the five-member City Commission, even when he couldn't publicly explain himself or his troubling track record in the newspaper's very own pre-election group candidate interviews, according to people who were there.
In Hallandale, Sanders, London By Sun Sentinel Editorial Board
In Seat 1, four people are vying for office, including incumbent Anthony Sanders.The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board encourages voters to retain Sanders. His experience and knowledge of the issues make him the better choice for this southeast Broward city of about 38,000.
Above, Broward Inspector General John W. Scott at a Broward League of Women Voters event in Coconut Creek, FL that I attended on January 24, 2013, with four other concerned Hallandale Beach residents and activists. Let me put it this way... on the day that I took this photo of Mr. Scott in 2013,I all but knew most of the major points detailed in his office's preliminary report, the subject of last week's news articles. Again for the benefit of newcomers to the blog, I'm a person who was constantly feeding the IG's office with tips consisting germane facts and context they weren't getting elsewhere. Inconvenient facts for Comm. Sanders, who, for all his brazeness in exploiting his ties to nonprofits who receive money from the Hallandale Beach CRA, which has mis-spent and wasted millions of dollars over the years, and which Comm. Sanders never cared to know what happened to the money, or even whether it was spent for the intended purpose. What he cared about was directing the money $$$ -deciding who would get it. Now, you'll learn why.
There's one more thing you should know about Comm. Sanders before reading my comments. Call it context, call it nuance, call it whatever you like. As best as anyone in the city can figure, there has NEVER been a single proposed development anywhere in the City of Hallandale Beach in the 10-plus years since Anthony A. Sanders has been a HB City Commissioner that he did not vote FOR,. No matter how ill-conceived it was, no matter how unpopular it was with neghborhood residents, no matter how unsightly or just plain ugly it was, no matter if the city's own professional staff recommended against approving it. Even by the very, very low ethical/public policy standards of South Florida, that is a remarkably dubious track record and proof positive of Comm. Sanders always looking at well-financed developers and their large teams of experts and consultants as a means to an end. He has always claimed that there would be secondary economic (ripple) effects in Northwest Hallandale Beach -the area that he claims as his own desite the fact that everyone on the HB City Commission is elected citywide- but as we can see both then and now, the actual economic ripple effect that resulted was NOT the one that most reasonable people would've expected.
Even Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper, the ringleader of what I have long called the Cooper Rubber Stamp Crew that for so many years ran this city into the ground and disrespected its residents and small business owners, actually managed to vote against a few proposed real estate developments. But not clearly disconnected-from-reality Comm. Sanders.
It's been common knowledge for the longest time -in part because I've mentioned it so frequently here on the blog and in my frequent emails after something Mayor Cooper herself said and did- that her biggest fear has long been that the true facts about the state of this city and its longtime mismanagement under her actually get out and penetrate the minds of the people in this state whose opinion she deeply cares about.
It helps feed her enormous ego.
That is to say, her pals throughout the area and up in Tallahassee, like the folks at the Florida League of Cities or former state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, the latter of whom as I've written here so often, was always happy to play guard dog for her up in Tallahassee, and help keep the germane facts from getting made public, as Sobel did in running interference for the mayor re the city's completely mismanaged and unethical CRA with the bicameral Joint Legislative Audit Commitee.
All to prevent an honest audit so that Hallandale Beach residents, taxpayers and small business owners could finally discover where all the tens of millions of HB CRA dollars went.
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Date: Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 12:42 PM Subject: #Ethics matters - More context, facts and fall-out to consider re Hallandale Beach Comm. Sanders' "misconduct" in office, per Broward Inspector General
Right now, I'm trying hard not to gloat about this long-overdue news and turn of events, given all the dozens and dozens of fact-filled pieces I've written on my blog and in emails to many of you over the past 11 years about Comm. Anthony A. Sanders, starting with his curious and completely illegal selection to the City Commission by Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper in 2006 to replace Comm. Francine Schiller, who was ill.
Mayor Cooper forced Anthony A. Sanders down the throats of Hallandale Beach residents by filling a HB City Commission vacancy that wasn't even legally vacant, and wouldn't be for another three weeks, days AFTER the scheduled second City Commission meeting of the month, which is to say, that there would have been plenty of time for public comments re the city's extant policies for filling vacancies. But Mayor Cooper didn't want the best prospective candidate in the city to fill the position, she consciously wanted Sanders.
Cooper she did so by blatantly violating the city's own rules and protocols -used just the year before for Keith London to replace then-HB City Commissioner Joe Gibbons on the Commission after his election to the Florida state House, in large part because she knew that then-City Attorney David Jove was a veritable bump on a log. Jove was someone who wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his outrageously large pension by reminding the mayor that what she was doing was patently illegal under the city's very own rules.
Once on board as part of Cooper's Rubber Stamp Crew, Sanders was noticeable for his almost-immediate very curious and confounding unethical ethical behavior and actions -or complete inaction when positive action, oversight and genuine accountability were necessary but Sanders was NOT up to the task. Not up to the responsibilities he owed the citizens of Hallandale Beach.
I gave SO MUCH information over the years to the Broward Inspector General via emails about Sanders and his retinue of hacks and apologists in HB, sometimes including specific information about the non-profits associated with him -including recipients of CRA loans that didn't file required yearly reports to the IRS and didn't spend the money for their stated purposes- to say nothing of the complete lack of public information and transparency about the sources of the funding and where it all went.
And do I need to even remind you how many dozens of time I wrote on the blog and in emails that Sanders was so brazen from the get-go that that he didn't even bother to recuse himself from voting on the dais, as required, when the city wanted to buy his old property for more than it was worth, despite the city having no actual (written) purpose for the building if they acquired it.
You know, the former Sanders property at 501 N.W. 1st Avenue that became the city-owned building that he could use for free afterwards, and which famously had Sanders, Cooper and Bill Julian campaign signs all over it for weeks before elections? http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-city-of-hallandale-beachs-rules-are.html Yes, despite it then being a city-owned building.
Check out this 2012 Local10 video with reporter Glenna Milberg: about what the Broward Inspector General had to say about the fishy deal with the purchase of Comm. Sanders' property. She wanted to interview Sanders, but he didn't want to have anything to do with the questions that might come his way from one of the few widely-respected reporters in South Florida: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/video-local10s-glenna-milberg-examines.html
In case you forgot some of the details, here's an excerpt from that 2012 email, that was also received by the Broward IG.
Wednesday September 26th, 2012 3:05 p.m.
I received a phone call from Csaba Kulin this afternoon and he mentioned several disturbing things to me that I believe that all concerned Hallandale Beach residents ought to know about.
Some of the facts he shared are ones that we all might've predicted would happen at some point in the final six weeks with Comm. Anthony A. Sanders re-election effort, given,
a.) the truly abysmal job Sanders has done in office the past four years, and the fact that he's refused to meet with resident taxpayers like you and me in public and simply tell the truth about what really happened with that 2009 land sale to the city, where the only parties who profited was Comm. Sanders and his wife, Jessica, and, b.) Sanders foolishly and illegally refused to recuse himself that Spring, and actually voting to give himself free use of the building he "sold" until it is demolished, courtesy of a motion by then-Commissioner Bill Julian that passed 4-1.
So you have the proper context, now that he has his own yards signs, Csaba has been busy campaigning and walking neighborhoods in NW HB for the past week, sometimes with Gerald Dean, sometimes by himself.
Csaba told me that he is being told over-and-over by residents that he speaks with at their homes that someone from Comm. Sanders' campaign have been a very busy beaver, indeed. It turns out that someone from Team Sanders has been illegally placing Sanders yard signs in residents' front yards without their permission.
According to Csaba, they're everywhere- but not by choice.
When asked why they don't simply remove them or call to complain, residents say that they know that regardless of what they do, another Sanders sign will be placed there overnight if they do anything to remove it, which is apparently what has already happened to some people who wouldn't put up with the effort to coerce the neighborhood.
Given these circumstances, some residents, esp. older residents, are quite understandably intimidated, and reluctant to draw attention to themelf by removing the illegally-placed campaign signs from their own yards, They have become unwilling victims of Sanders' desire to stay in office and ride the gravy train however long he can, by hook or by crook.
Not that Sanders is telling the truth to anyone in NW HB, either, since as we've all discussed previously, the truth is NOT Sanders' friend! It's one of the reasons why Sanders initially refused to cooperate with the Broward Inspector General and his team of investigators,
Yes, expect a lot more details to come out in the coming weeks and months regarding matters and behavior involving Sanders and his associates that I have pointed at and hinted at over the years, that were begging for some kind of plausible, reasonable explanation from him but which got... none.
Florida Bulldog Report: Hallandale commissioner Anthony Sanders “engaged in pattern of misconduct” By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org JULY 11, 2017 AT 10:58 AM
A preliminary report by the Broward Inspector General’s Office says Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony Sanders “engaged in a pattern of misconduct” when he “failed to disclose payments” made to him and other family members by a community group which Sanders voted to give thousands of dollars in city grants and other funding.
The July 7 report obtained by Florida Bulldog also said that Palms Community Action Coalition Inc. (PCAC) made contractual payments to Higher Vision Ministries, where Sanders is the pastor and the only paid full-time employee. The report adds that Sanders solicited and received contributions for the church from developers seeking to do business with the city.
PCAC is a Hallandale Beach-based nonprofit organization that provides job training and community development services to local residents.
— KGB Covfefe Steph (@dwightyoakamfan) July 12, 2017
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Hallandale Commissioner Anthony Sanders engaged in misconduct, Inspector General says Susannah Bryan, Reporter, Sun Sentinel July 11, 2017 7:45 PM
Anthony Sanders used his position as a Hallandale Beach commissioner to approve nearly $1 million in funding to a nonprofit that made monthly payments to the church he founded and also paid his immediate family, according to a Broward Inspector General’s report obtained by the Sun Sentinel.
Sanders, 56, failed to disclose the payments he, his wife and two sons received from the Palms Community Action Coalition, according to the Inspector General’s preliminary report. Sanders’ wife at one point served as executive director of the nonprofit, which had a mission of job training, job placement and community outreach.
Hallandale Beach commissioner accused of ethical misconduct involving non-profit Brian Entin July 12, 2017
HALLANDALE BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A Hallandale Beach commissioner is being accused of using his elected position to financially benefit him, his church and his family.
Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony Sanders has another position as a pastor, but the Broward County Inspector General said Sanders voted to allow money to go to a non-profit, which was benefiting his church and family.
Hallandale freezes payments for city development, jobs programs citing waste & fraud By William Gjebre, FloridaBulldog.org JULY 19, 2017 AT 6:00 AM
Hallandale Beach City Manager Roger Carlton has ordered what could be a multi-million dollar freeze on all payments under two city jobs and business development programs, saying they “have lost their way.”
Carlton acted about what he said was “waste” and possible fraud weeks before a report by county investigators became public last week that accused City Commissioner Anthony Sanders of failing to disclose payments he received from a local community group awarded city funds, including money under the two programs, with his backing.
In a June 5 memorandum obtained by Florida Bulldog, Carlton, who was appointed city manager by a new reform-minded city commission majority, expressed outrage about the flawed city programs and public apathy about them.
Happy to share some good news with the long-beleaguered citizens and Small Business owners of Hallandale Beach and South Florida, who have desperately need more news and days like this one - where people in power who consciously do bad things, yet felt a sense of entitlement, FINALLY get caught and publicly held to account.
So, what's Broward State Attorney Mike Satz going to do? Good question!
While we are asking good questions, here's another: Why is #SoFL media NOT asking #Broward's #UsualSuspects in government and public policy to speak publicly about what they think abt Comm. Sanders & Family's unethical behavior, helping themselves to #HallandaleBeach $?
Where's the great ethical insight from state Sen. Gary Farmer, or his predecessor, Eleanor Sobel, or Oscar Braynon II, the latter two of whom helped protect the HB CRA's butt for so long in Tallahassee despite all the squandered millions of dollars because their pal Joy Cooper insisted on it. You remember that, don't you? I talked about it so often on the blog and on Twitter and in emails and...? Florida Bulldog Two senators short-circuit Legislature’s plan to audit troubled Hallandale Beach CRA By Willliam Gjebre, BrowardBulldog.org NOVEMBER 26, 2013 AT 6:13 AM
A Florida Legislature’s joint auditing committee is dropping its inquiry of Hallandale Beach’s questionable use of local redevelopment funds at the urging of two area state senators, one a long-time acquaintance of Mayor Joy Cooper.
Democratic Senators Eleanor Sobel and Oscar Braynon II, representing portions of Hallandale Beach, could not be reached for comment, despite repeated calls, to elaborate on a letter they signed recommending against a state audit or any action related to the controversial city spending of Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) funds.
In addition, the committee will not ask the Florida Attorney General for an updated opinion on how CRA funds can be used. This was a contentious issue between the city and the Broward Inspector General’s Office which found that Hallandale Beach had “grossly mismanaged” millions of dollars in CRA funds while ignoring a 2010 opinion that limited CRA spending to “bricks and mortar” redevelopment projects.
Where's the wise and learned counsel from the Broward League of Voters or The Broward Workshop or the Urban League of Broward County, whom the South Florida news media is forever telling us is still relevant to things in Broward County, all apparent evidence to the contrary? What about some pithy comments from some reputed religious expert to comment on the idea of a pastor (who is also an elected official) deciding that charity, in the form of non-profit monie$, really DOES begin at home, as Sanders has shown? What about former Hallandale Beach City Commisioner and state Rep. Joe Gibbons, or current state Reps. Joe Geller or Shevrin Jones? I kid, of course, because the last three are well-known BS artists with a connection to Hallandale Beach, but whom nearly everyone who pays attention to things political herebaouts knows are three people who could really care less about what happens in HB, much preferring the sound of their own voice and its constant stream of false narratives and sweet nothings to the harsh glare of reality -their pal Sanders is a lying hypocrite who wants to play the victim after he broke the law. Well, not to say I told you so but all-too-predictably, the South Florida news media is not doing anything remotely like asking people of any kind of power or influence in Broward County to weigh-in publicly on what seems like an easy softball of a question. The sort of basic follow-up that for most of th 20th Century would have been expected by the press corps, regardless of the size of the city involved or the power of the public figure who had disgraced themself. But South Florida's news media doesn't want to ask any probing questions of anyone about corrupt Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony A. Sanders. or why the same news media didn't say anything about him when there was not just smoke billowing at Hallandale Beach City Hall, but a veritable Towering Inferno. Just something for you all to consider the next time the press corps here in South Florida waxes philosophic and wonders aloud why most of them are neither trusted or respected by South Florida's residents.
#Norway #Norge #mittlilleland 
