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 ๐ซ๐๐บ๐ฝ️๐. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
jilljohnsonmusic YouTube Channel video: "Sail On" - Lionel Richie and Jill Johnson. LIVE on SVT's Skavlan Show. Aired March 9, 2012. Uploaded March 10, 2012. http://youtu.be/BatEw1Ci24U
This post was updated in December 2014.
As originally seen at http://svtplay.se/v/2737137/skavlan/lionel_richie_och_jill_johnson_-_sail_on?sb,k104116,1,f,-1 The SVT Play video lapsed in March of 2013 so I replaced that video with this version from Jill Johnson's YouTube Channel. I LOVE THIS VERSION! Through complete sheer serendipity, while looking thru my nightly check list of foreign Internet sources to see before going to sleep, while checking out some things on the always interesting Swedish TelevisionSVT Play website, which I spend lots of time at, I found this utterly fascinating interview with Grammy Award-winning singer Lionel Richie on talk show host Fredrik Skavlan's very popular Friday night TV show, which airs on both SVT and NRK, the Norwegian TV/Radio service.
If I recall correctly, I read this episode from last Friday drew three million TV viewers combined.
I last mentioned Skavlan last year when I posted his interview with singer Robin Gibb of The Bee Gees on his amazing career, his recent health problems, his remarkably talented family and his efforts to help get an RAF WWII Memorial constructed in London, here: FEBRUARY 12, 2011 Robin Gibb and Carola sing "How Deep Is Your Love" on SVT's "Skavlan"; 20-minute interview also! http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/robin-gibb-and-carola-sing-how-deep-is.html
In this interview, conducted in English and originally with Swedish subtitles, Richie speaks candidly with Skavlan about being a survivor: on fame in Hollywood, his two divorces, learning to be a strong parent when his now-equally famous daughter, Nicole Richie, had her substance abuse problems, dealing with death of longtime famous friends like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross, and how their untimely deaths have changed him and dampened his view of the music industry.
And, of course, there the sweet duet of "Sail on" afterwards that he performs up at the top of this post with popular Swedish Country music singer Jill Johnson. As regular readers of this blog know from how many times I've posted about her here in the past, I absolutely adore Jill, and could listen to her sing anything, which is why I subscribe to her terrific YouTube Channel, which is usually pretty current compared to most. http://www.youtube.com/user/jilljohnsonmusic Jill also sang in December's annual SVTSt. Lucia telecast that was great -as usual! I watched that telecast LIVE online via SVT Play, just like the previous year. Originally seen at http://svtplay.se/t/102974/skavlanuntil April 8th, 2012, as follows, 0:35:36 Intro to Lionel Richie... interview, leading to at0:52:20 the introduction to song, which closes the show. As usual, theSVTaudio and video quality is amazing, so be sure to click fullskรคrmfor the full screen. With that episode of the show no longer available in full length, here is most of the Richie interview in two parts
Watch the puppets dance! Remembering the 2010 Hallandale Beach City Manager search that was sabotaged by Mayor Joy Cooper, Comm. William "Bill" Julian & Comm. Dotty Ross, to the utter dismay of the city's residents.
Here's the all-too-true back-story on the video above, which was created by my clever and resourceful friend, Michael Butler of Change Hallandale fame. (See more on Michael and his website at the bottom.)
Yes, "I do not want to discontinue this process" said Mayor Cooper.
But the "process" as such at that point was to bring in some suitable candidates selected by the consultant and have them actually visit and tour the city, meet some residents, and see what's what so they and their family could determine if they really wanted to proceed forward.
But "going forward" by ONLY interviewing the incumbent acting-City Manager, Mark A. Antonio, is not proceeding, it's sabotaging.
This whole sham was made worse and even more ironic -if possible- by the fact that weeks earlier, the mayor was publicly against Antonio even being considered, a fact known by 99% of the HB citizens in the Commission chambers that night, including me.
This long and ponderous evening Commission meeting is one of the rare times in the past 43 months in office that Comm. Sanders actually did the right thing by HB residents, and believe me, there aren't many of those, so they're easy to remember.
Trust me, it's far less than one handful in almost four years in office.
Frankly, considering how oblivious he is to issues that residents and business owners really care about and have been upset about for many years, how very little he actually contributes to anything during meetings, the way he carries himself around town, as well as the almost clueless way his small cadre of supporters act, unable to see or accept how genuinely unpopular he is after 43 months of sitting there on the dais like a bump on a log, Comm. Sanders has led a very charmed life.
Very charmed.
Especially for someone with such a truly awful voting record that's chock-full of poorly thought-out votes against increased public accountability, financial transparency, and for his always seeming to be against the increased scrutiny and oversight of spending that residents desperately want in a city where the budget has nearly doubled the past six years.
With, as I've stated so often here, so very little to show for it compared to other cities and towns in South Florida.
Where did all that money go?
Sanders' awful track record in office, which causes SO MANY voters who gave him the benefit of the doubt four years ago and voted for him despite their reservations -instead of listening to me and voting for Arturo O'Neill, someone who would've made a positive difference for the community, not a negative one like Sanders- continues to provoke dumbstruck looks on people in this community who pay close attention.
They just shake their heads and say, "I won't be fooled again."
And they won't.
That particular night in 2010, though, with only Comm. Keith London and Comm. Sanders actually committed to an open process that gave HB residents -the people actually paying for the consultant- the time they clearly wanted to let the public "process" play itself out, instead of changing the rules at halftime, the public ended up getting screwed by Mayor Cooper for the umpteenth time when Cooper, Julian and Ross became determined to short-circuit that "process" for good.
Of simply picking up their ball and walking away at halftime.
To the amazement of many people in the room, but not my own or Arturo's, Comm. Ross actually had the temerity to actually mock the public at this and prior City Commission meetings for their commitment to the process we were promised by the Commission but not given.
But then from Comm. Ross' point of view, what the public got for its trouble was less important than the fact that by pulling-the-plug and screwing over the residents yet again that she was supposed to represent, she got to leave this evening meeting and go home to sleep.
And after all, isn't THAT the most important thing?
-----
CHANGE HALLANDALE BEACH
- A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos.
The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew of Commissioners Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy, plus City Manager Mark A. Antonio CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais.
Theirs is a strange Looking Glass world of un-reality that can quickly confuse -or frighten!- normal people not prepared for such self-evident mendacity.
Which is where Michael comes in stage-left and I come in stage-right...
See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's well-informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com
As I mentioned the other day after hearing from him, Michael's website is currently migrating over to WordPress -which I've also frequently considered moving HBB to- so that may explain any technical problems you may run into from time-to-time in seeing the very useful information Michael has there.
Even now, Michael is hard at work putting the finishing touches on an important subject to Hallandale Beach residents and business owners involving millions of dollars, as is my friend Csaba Kulin, whom I spent some time with today to hear how his research was going.
Csaba and Michael continue to be excellent examples of American civic activism at its best, continuing to pour their time and energy into delving into serious financial matters that few others have either the time, energy or inclination to do.
Sadly for all of us who live in this city that ought to be so much better, save Comm. Keith London, their work ethic and dedication to getting the true facts and financial numbers out to the community -which the mayor and her cronies can't bear- completely laps the remaining members of the present HB City Commission, as well as former Commissioner Julian, who is running again after being kicked-out in 2010.
Julian's large role in that 2010 City Manager search debacle, and his own confusion as to what he was doing and saying, will NOT be forgotten by HB voters in November, because it was the perfect example of his general unfitness for office.
Don't think that the dreadful track records of Julian, Sanders and Cooper won't be discussed to a fare thee well, both here on the blog in the future and during the coming 2012 political campaign for Hallandale Beach mayor and city commission, of which Csaba is a candidate for the latter.
That simple contrast both informs and illuminates who really deserves your support and is deserving of your thanks.
I'm proud to have Michael and Csaba as friends.
And those of you who live here should be very thankful that they consciously choose to do the hard work and heavy lifting that 4/5ths of our current elected city officials WON'T do.
This helpful email below from Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Keith London made its way to my email inbox on March 1st, and it gives a good overview of the "process" and what's at stake in the future for this city's citizen taxpayers and business owners as the city prepares for current City Manager Mark A. Antonio's departure in June. Based on my own conversations around town with other residents, politically-oriented and otherwise, my own intuition, plus, hearing some of the most well-informed and articulate voters in this town speak a few weeks ago at one of Comm. London's monthly Resident Forum, where the city's consultant, Colin Baezinger, appeared for the last of the two-hours at the HB Cultural Center to speak to us and answer questions for just under an hour, we do NOT want a City Manager who will not roll-over, fetch or play "dead" in order to keep his or her job. (I'd have posted the video I shot of Baezinger interacting with the public that day, but because I got caught up into listening and didn't stop and start the video-cam every so often on individual subjects, it's far long for me to post directly here via Blogger, or, even cut into segments and place on my YouTube Channel. I definitely need to learn from that mistake!) We want someone who will proactively take advantage of the geographical, social and people resources here to get this city to the point it should've been at many years ago. Instead, the same practical everyday issues of a lack of core competencies and effectiveness in dealing with problems and the citizens who want solutions, a very stubborn unwillingness to change or adapt clearly failing public policies that have no public support, and avery, very strong distrust of the motives, ethics and and work-ethic of Hallandale Beach City Hall administrators and employees themselves, hangs over this city like a dark ominous cloud that simply won't blow away. Far too much time and energy at HB City Hall is spent on little more than outright deception of taxpayers and business owners to prevent them from knowing what's REALLY going on, all in furtherance of Mayor Cooper's effort to keep up the facade that she is in control and that everything is okay. It's NOT. And then residents like me and many of the well-informed people I know who have lived here far longer than I, feel compelled to push-back on those deceptive efforts from City Hall, wasting precious time and energy we;d all rather see channeled productively elsewhere, rather than constantly having to point to the many pink elephants in the room, none of which those in charge and earning nice salaries and benefits claim to be able to see. Yes, intentional myopia. Below Comm. London's email, consultant Colin Baezinger also details what the tentative schedule for the next few weeks looks like so that HB residents can interact with some of the candidates, something that we were NOT able to do in the summer of 2010, when Mayor Joy Cooper and City Commissioners William "Bill" Julian and Dotty Rosshijacked the transparent process that HB residents had been promised, and then completely short-circuited it by literally changing the rules in the middle of the search, just as we were all about to find out who some of the candidates were.
All because the mayor decided that Antonio should be considered for the job after all, flip-flopping on her earlier contention that he NOT even be considered.
Given the subject of my last blog post here, Hallandale Beach Commissioners spending taxpayer $$$ in a hurry -and NOT in the Sunshine! As usual, Comm. Sanders just sits there and waits to be told what to say and how to vote
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/hallandale-beach-commissioners-spending.html I thought you might benefit from knowing what the current plan is. As my next blog post will clearly show -and then some- having a written plan to select a new City Manager may work in next-door Hollywood, where I participated in the public process in January and wrote about my observations here that led to Douglas Hewett earning his selection there, after a very impressive presentation to the Hollywood city Commission, which I filmed. http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/doug-hewett-named-new-hollywood-city.html But here in Hallandale Beach, a plan is just a couple of words on a piece of paper, and can be thrown-out whenever three people on the HB City Commission with a track record in office of consistently voting against the long-term best interests of its citizens find the public "process" either too taxing for their brains -or want to go home.
-------
Everyone,
The City of Hallandale Beach Commission will be making one of the most important decisions affecting our City with the hiring of a new City Manager. The new City Manager will be chosen in the next six weeks. Please take a moment to mark your calendars with these important dates (please see email below for the schedule).
The choosing of a new city manager will affect every resident and business in “our” community.
This decision will most likely live longer than many of the elected officials’ current terms and should not be taken lightly. The decision will be made through a detailed vetting process with the assistance of an outside consultant; yet no process is perfect. The commission will have a relatively short amount of time to review the applications and interview the short list of candidates. Personally, the accomplishments of an individual are very important, but how this person fits into “our” community with the existing unique set of issues and all the potential to be a first class city waiting to be unlocked, will weigh heavily for me.
Please participate and attend these meetings to meet and great all the candidates. I look forward to the next phase of improvement and the positive future in “Our” city.
Sincerely,
Keith
Keith S. London
City Commissioner
Hallandale Beach
954-457-1320 Office
954-494-3182 Cellular
www.KeithLondon.com
http://www.facebook.com/KeithSLondon
-----
From: Colin Baenziger [mailto:Colin@cb-asso.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 05:11 PM
To: Cooper, Joy; Lewy, Alexander; Sanders, Anthony; Ross, Dotty; London, Keith
Cc: Amiraian, George; Rafols, Nydia M
Subject: City Manager Search Update - Be Sure Your Calendars Are Marked...
I wanted to give you a quick update on the City Manager Search Process. Right now, we are in the midst of checking out the most promising candidates. We do have it down to less than a dozen although I do not want to release any names at this point. If we find something in a candidate’s background that we do not like, we will drop the candidate. If the names have already been released, the media may want to know why a candidate has been dropped and I would prefer not to be in that situation.
I can tell you that I am very pleased with the field. All the candidates are highly qualified and the field is diverse in terms of experience, race and gender. While the candidates are primarily from Florida, we do have some diversity there as well.
The important upcoming dates for you to remember and be available for are:
March 14th: Background materials for the candidates arrive and are distributed to the commissioners.
March 14th to 21st: I will be available to answer any questions you may have.
March 21st: I will be at city hall to meet with any of the commissioners who wish to discuss the candidates.
March 21st: Also, on March 21st, the Commission will select the candidates who will be finalists and be interviewed for the position.
March 30th: Candidate arrive, meet the staff, tour the city and an evening reception is held so they can meet the public. The Commission only needs to be available for the evening reception and not the other events.
March 31st: The Commission interviews the finalists one-on-one and as a full commission. Typically these events go from 8:30 a.m. to about 3:30 p.m.
April 2nd: The Commission selects the next City Manager.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call me.
Here's the all-too-true back-story on the video above created by my friend, and fellow civic activist and blogger, Michael Butler of Change Hallandale fame. (See more on Michael and his website at the bottom.) In the summer of 2010, in a Hallandale Beach City Hall room where regular HB City Commission meetings are NOT held, the infamous Room 257, a room where the proceedings are NOT televised, and on an agenda item that was NOT previously advertised to the public, Hallandale Beach's City Commissioners discuss how much to pay in a bonus to then-interim-City Manager Mark A. Antonio, who'd been on the job for all of about six weeks at the time.
And talk about putting the cart before the horse, at one point, you actually hear Antonio, one of two city employee who work directly for the City Commission, tell the members to hurry up and make a decision on how much he should be given, because, as he explains, "his wife" wants to know. That's both telling and appalling for all sorts of reasons.
You will also hear oblivious EIGHTY-something HB Comm. Dotty Ross making the sort of disingenuous crack we've come to expect from her -when she's awake that is. The night meetings, well, those are a different story for her, as she'll often play possum and not say more than four words over 3-5 hours. In this case, she condescendingly says something about "asking the blogger" about what they're about to do.
Dotty Ross was only too happy to give away thousands of taxpayer dollars at a meeting where the public didn't know what was going on, and in this case, a bonus to someone for just doing the job they were already getting very well-paid for. With, I might add, NOT very much for him to point to in the way of positive accomplishments considering the sorry state of the city then -and now.
Yes, the same exact things in this small 4.2 square mile city that were screwed-up then, as you know from reading my blog -the deplorable conditions of the public beach, the public parks, the dark conditions of and security at city facilities...-are still badly mismanaged and botched now, and it's self-evident, not any great mystery.
And to absolutely nobody's surprise, as you can see for yourself, oblivious Comm. Anthony A. Sanders didn't really want to tax his brain at the meeting and is actually overheard telling his colleagues that he doesn't really care what the amount of the bonus is, they ought to just work it out amongst themselves and he'll okay it.
But the thing is, of course, Sanders is one of the five people elected specifically in this city to make public policy and make those decisions, not sit there like a bump on a log, and yet this is indicative of his behavior for 42 months, as I've been saying so long on this blog.
He'll let everyone else decide what to do and then he'll just apply his Rubber Stamp vote to whatever they say.
Yes, that's Comm. Sanders in action -waiting on the sidelines for the others to tell him what to say and do.
That's a lot of things, but that is NOT "representing."
Many of you have told me that you couldn't believe he really was as bad as I've said and written that you wanted some tangible proof of his sheer uselessness and waste of a seat on the dais, there, now you have it: Him actually admitting that he'd let the other Commissioners decide things. This is the person who was going to make a difference? Pathetic!
It might interest those of you who are somewhat new to the blog to know that using their own publicly-revealed figures, in early 2010, the very small group of people working in the HB City Manager's Office received as much in salary as next-door City of Hollywood, this despite the fact that Hollywood is SIX times larger in land size, and with over THREE times the population size -37,000 vs. 140,000.
Chew on those figures!
For more on infamous Room 257 at Hallandale Beach City Hall and Mark Antonio's longstanding proclivity to not want to face either the facts or the music, see my post of June 10, 2010 about his role in city employees intentionally preventing me from attending a public meeting, which, when I finally got up there, was mysteriously cancelled. http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/latest-unethical-lowlight-at-hallandale.html
----- CHANGE HALLANDALE BEACH - A fact-based website run by my friend and fellow Hallandale Beach civic activist, Michael Butler, which goes directly after the longtime incompetency and crony capitalism at Hallandale Beach City Hall with cold-hard logic, quantifiable figures, graphs, charts and videos.
The kind of evidence that Mayor Joy Cooper, City Manager Mark A. Antonio and her Rubber Stamp Crew -i.e. City Commissioners Dotty Ross, Anthony A. Sanders and Alexander Lewy- CAN'T refute with any of their serial lies, half-truths, mis-statements of fact, or exaggerations from the dais.
Theirs is a strange Looking Glass world of un-reality that can quickly confuse -or frighten!- normal people not prepared for such self-evident mendacity. Which is where Michael comes in stage-left and I come in stage-right...
See the evidence for yourself and see what's REALLY going on in Hallandale Beach from Michael's well-informed perspective at http://www.changehallandale.com
* March 10th, 2012 update I received a few emails from readers yesterday telling me they were having problems with the Change Hallandale website, though it seemed fine when I was on it Friday afternoon. I forwarded one of the comments to Michael and he responded thusly: Hey David, thanks for the note! The site is still up although its transitioning to Wordpress….
Above, Hallandale Beach City Hall, February 13, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier
Wednesday night's HB City Comm. mtg. re the gory details of Marcum LLP's audit of the City of Hallandale Beach and its entrenched anti-Sunshine, anti-taxpayer culture
I'll have more news to share about the Marcum LLP report on Hallandale Beach City Hall over the next few days, not only my own individual take and that of other outraged HB residents, but also the lame and preposterous excuses that were predictably trotted-out byMayor Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew -and City Manager Mark A. Antonio- on why they weren't aware of SO MANY TROUBLING EPISODES that were like exploding emergency flares being fired off into the night sky.
Episodes that were largely ignored by Mayor Cooper, Dotty Ross, William "Bill" Julian and Anthony A. Sanders, all of whom had a moral duty to look out for the long-term financial interests of HB taxpayers -but didn't.
Frankly, you could add up all their efforts, individually and collectively, and it might barely fill a sewing thimble, which is a real indictment of their lack of their seriousness, their general unfitness for office, and their laissez-faire attitude, with some barely awake at some meetings.
Yes, the Marcum findings, somewhat superficial as they necessarily were, due to what the powers-that-be at HB City Hall didn't want them to do or discover -fraud, for instance- were the logical consequence of the Commission's chronic lack of oversight, a hole in the security fence that city employees have come to take advantage of for years, like a sleeping watchdog.
But before I get around to posting my impression on that very long night in a few days, I wanted to first post this copy of an email I wrote and sent to Comm. Keith London Wednesday afternoon, about two hours before that night's City Commission meeting, where the Marcum report was, of course, the main subject du jour.
I meant to post it online before heading over to the 7 p.m. meeting, but was having more trouble than usual with the Google Chrome OS crashing over-and-over, and after reaching the point of frustration, just gave up on the idea, grabbed something to eat and headed over to HB City Hall.
-----
March 7, 2012
Dear Comm. London:
Tonight, the long-suffering taxpayers of Hallandale Beach will finally hear the FINAL gory details of
Marcum LLP'saudit of the City of Hallandale Beach and its entrenched anti-Sunshine, anti-taxpayer
culture.
I will be in attendance, eager to hear the city try to explain away all the inconvenient facts raised by
this audit, which is only of just some of the financial records -NOT all the ones- that Hallandale Beach
taxpayers have long had serious questions and reservations about.
Because I am someone who for years has publicly advocated more transparency and accountability
at Hallandale Beach City Hall, both among elected officials and city employees, NOT more spin and
stealthiness, and was very much against the idea of this small city hiring someone to act as an official
spin-meister, rather than simply being MORE forthright and forthcoming with the community with
PUBLIC INFORMATION, at some point or another in the proceedings, I'd appreciate it if you mentioned
to everyone in the room that even while trying to effectuate a whitewash of this embarrassing situation,
the city has once again been both clumsy and incompetent.
During current Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, is the U.S. Mainstream Media using old photos of Limbaugh -instead of recent ones- to editorialize? It seems so to me
Just wanted to mention this subject this afternoon before I moved on to some other matters, but I honestly can't be the only person in America who has noticed (and is now wondering) WHY the U.S. Mainstream Media -the same one that called the GOP nomination for Mitt Romney before the actual campaign ever started in earnest- keeps using old photos, and in some cases, very old photos, of Rush Limbaugh in their articles the past few weeks.
Somehow, the same folks who wouldn't think to use an old photo of Justin Bieber, Tiger Woods or Donald
Trump to illustrate something any they're saying or doing now, seem completely unable to find a new one
that conforms to what Limbaugh looks like now?
Really?
He's not exactly a hermit, you know.
He is who he is, but he is also, arguably, trimmer than many if not most of those old photos from 15-20 years ago that I keep seeing, so why is the U.S. news media seemingly going out of its way to not only use those old photos, esp. of his face, which they then greatly magnify, but then use them to editorialize on the subject of the story before any of the text is read?
That's a good question.
It's also noteworthy that compared to almost anyone else I can think of: politician, athlete, entertainment celebrity, or even John Doe or Jane Q. Public, there is rarely, if ever, a date for the photos of him.
Or even a photographer/agency credit.
It's like the photo of Limbaugh just took itself and magically appeared in the news room for them to use.
The LA Times'Company Town blog post of today, the first in the list below from today's Google Alert,
is perhaps the most obvious example I can name.
As you can see when you go to the story, it does all three of the above.
I'm specifically using the photo they use, on purpose, to prove that very point: no date, no photo credit.
And for those of you who either live far from LA or who don't read the LA Times regularly, the link within the above photo on the LA Times website, curiously, takes you to an LA Times story by Scott Collins on their very popular Company Town blog -which I subscribe to- about actress Patricia Heaton, titled,
Patricia Heaton: Twitter woes recall past Rush Limbaugh firestorm
not a link to a timeline of the current controversy involving him and Sandra Fluke.
Nor is it even a link to an article or essay about the longstanding and well-known hypocrisy in both the news media and in Hollywood, which itself at least partly explains why it also doesn't link to anything involving any of the numerous past slights and slurs tossed-out by any of a number of liberal celebs, inc. everyone's favorite target of hypocrisy, comedian/TV host Bill Maher.
Seriously, are well-informed readers who actually can appreciate nuance and context, and who have some genuine notions of basic journalistic fairness, like me, just supposed to believe that all these things randomly happen by accident?
That photos from years ago find themselves placed into stories despite an abundance of more recent photos?
I have to tell you, THAT'S a very tough sell right now.
Just saying...
(I've deleted all the other Google Alert citations below to save space, since, fortunately for me, the very first one makes the point so well, the other 28 pale in comparison.)
-----
From: Google Alerts<googlealerts-noreply@google.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 3:46 AM
Subject: Google Alert - "Rush Limbaugh"
2012 Florida Legislature to end on Friday without EVER examining carpetbagger Joe Gibbons' faux residency -he's NOT a permanent Broward County resident anymore
Yes, just like last year.
And the year before that.
And so on...
It's a sad familiar refrain wherein a guy who pretends to live here, and who gets paid to represent people who really DO live here, just keeps getting the last laugh -at our expense.
No doubt after the gavel is banged down tomorrow before several necessary things are done -ALF reform, for instance- Gibbons, D-105, will once again be thanking his lucky stars.
Which is to say, thanking whatever the stars are that burn brightest over his head in north Florida at night as he laughs and drives all the way back home to the Jacksonville area, where his attorney wife, Ava Lora Parker, works at her firm, Lawrence & Parker PA,and where his kids live.
Meanwhile, just like last year, it's fair to ask why SO MANY print and TV reporters in the country's fourth-largest state, which includes Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Orlando, Pensacola, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Ft. Myers and Palm Beach, et al, seem to once again have gone out of their way to NEVER bring the subject up.
You won't hurt his feelings to bring it up, he already knows he's getting away with it!
Frankly, that complete lack of journalistic curiosity, especially when the story is just sitting there on a silver platter, only proves conspiracy theorists correct about one old maxim at least -that the most-important news stories are usually the ones that you never see on TV or read about in the newspaper -or in the Buzz blog or Broward Politics blog- because the reporters or editors are compromised in some fashion or another.
Well, that is except for Bob Norman of the ABC-TV affiliate in Miami, WPLG-TV, Channel 10, who penned this 15 months ago, before he jumped over to TV last year:
-----
BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
Broward Politics
House Pro Tem Investigated for Homestead Fraud
By Bob Norman Monday, November 15, 2010 at 10:15 AM
State Rep. Joe Gibbons, who has been named the number-two Democrat in the Florida Legislature, was investigated for homestead fraud earlier this year -- and government records indicate he lied to officials during the probe.
The Broward County Property Appraisers Office investigation also found that Gibbons' homestead in Hallandale Beach conflicted with another controversial homesteaded property in Jacksonville owned by his wife, Florida Board of Governors member Ava L. Parker.
On top of that, it doesn't appear that Gibbons had a valid residence in his own district.
Read the rest of the fact-filled, jaw-dropping post at:
Now that FL State Rep. Evan Jenne of Dania Beach has officially declared for the Broward County Commission, District 7, presently the John Rodstrom seat, rather than run in the August Democratic primary against Gibbons in the newly-redrawn House district, I can go back to my Draft blog post labeled, "Will carpetbagger Joe Gibbons actually move his family to Broward County from Jacksonville this summer in an attempt to defeat Evan Jenne in the Democratic primary?" on account of it being too good to be true.
I hate when that happens!
I was really looking forward to Jenne just crushing Gibbons alive, and all but daring him to bring his wife and kids with him to debates in Broward county so his kids could see where he claimed to live.
But sadly, that just isn't meant to be.
No "film at eleven."
In Indiana, you have to live where you say you do, and be able to prove it.
Indiana secretary of state convicted of voter fraud
February 4, 2012 | 1:17 pm
After deliberating for 12 hours, an Indiana jury early Saturday morning found the state's top elections official, Charlie White, guilty of six of seven felony charges related to voter fraud.
White, who was elected Indiana's secretary of state in 2010, had been accused -- among other things -- of lying about his address on voter registration forms. He was indicted in March, two months after being sworn into office.
As the case unwound, White kept his post.
The indictment alleged that White was living outside of the district of the Fishers Town Council where he served and continued drawing a salary. It also accused him of voting in the wrong district during the May 2010 primary.
Around 2 a.m. Saturday, the Hamilton County jury convicted White of false registration, voting in another precinct, submitting a false ballot, theft and two counts of perjury. The theft charge stems from the salary he received while living outside the district. He was acquitted on a more serious fraud charge, the Associated Press reported.
About an hour after the conviction, Gov. Mitch Daniels appointed Jerry Bonnet as interim secretary of state.
"I have chosen not to make a permanent appointment today out of respect for the judge’s authority to lessen the verdict to a misdemeanor and reinstate the elected office holder," Daniels said in a statement. "If the felony convictions are not altered, I anticipate making a permanent appointment quickly."
Prosecutors argued that White used his ex-wife's address instead of a condo he had with his fiancee because he didn't want to give up his $1,000-per-month Fishers Town Council salary after moving out of that district, the Associated Press said.
White, 42, has said the charges ignored a complicated personal life in which he was trying to raise his 10-year-old son, plan his second marriage and campaign for the statewide office he won that November. He said he stayed at his ex-wife's house when he wasn't on the road campaigning and did not live in the condo until after he remarried.
A date has not yet been set for sentencing. White's lawyers, however, have indicated they will attempt to reduce to the felony convictions to misdemeanors.
-- Ricardo Lopez
And this clown is supposed to "represent" me in the state capital?
