Important meeting tonight at Hollywood City Hall re the future redevelopment of the South Park Road Redevelopment Site, a brownfield, and a golden opportunity for out-of-the-box ideas and thinking

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Meant to post this bit of useful information on Saturday morning, since it represents a golden opportunity for residents, activists and interested entrepreneurs to show some vision and out-of-the-box thinking that could create something unique there that will be a destination -if done right.
This area can certainly use more of that

In case you forgot, it's got great proximity to I-95, is near the on the north side of Pembroke Road/State Road 824, opposite the huge Coca-Cola bottling and distribution facility in Pembroke Park, and is a few blocks west of Hollywood's 36-hole Championship  Orangebrook Golf & Country Club.
http://www.jcdsportsgroup.com/orangebrook-golf-country-club

Wish I still had that ten-year stack of Preservation magazines I had in my garage when I lived in Arlington, VA, published by the The National Trust for Historic Preservation, one of my favorite groups and favorite magazines. http://www.preservationnation.org/
http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/#.UIV7VW_A-So

I distinctly remember reading many interesting stories in it about communities around the country that figured out a way to come together to use both common sense and inspiration to help revitalize brownfields -and other similar sites with some degree of commercial contamination short of that official designation- to make something positive happen in their towns.
http://www.preservationnation.org/search-results.html?cx=012332512725415726220%3All6q0vntfdq&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q="brownfield"&sa=Search&siteurl=www.preservationnation.org%2Fmagazine%2F&ref=www.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%

See in particular the reader comments on an industrial adaptive reuse venture in Bethlehem, PA, though Hollywood has more flexibility because none of the building there now are histioric.
http://blog.preservationnation.org/2011/06/15/remembering-the-importance-of-industrial-heritage/

Doubtless, after what was probably lots of controversy, with some residents not caring what went up there because they thought anything would be an improvement, while others engaged in micro-managing what was there, often with the results that nothing happened for years.
The latter would be a bad outcome for Hollywood, which is why the more ideas the better.

I've slightly edited the email below that I received from the City of Hollywood on Friday.


Meeting tonight at Hollywood City Hall re the future of the South Park Road Redevelopment Site

The Department of Community and Economic Development is holding a public meeting regarding the South Park Road Redevelopment Site, formerly the Hollywood Incinerator Ash Dump, on Monday, October 22, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, Room 219.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for has announced funding availability to carry out cleanup activities at a specific brownfield sites.  The City of Hollywood is interested in applying for a grant for the purposes of cleaning up environmental concerns on the South Park Road site.  

This public meeting is the first step in moving forward with the potential redevelopment of this site and discussions will include funding availability and process and community support of grant efforts to address existing environmental concerns.  Community participation is essential in City projects and your feedback during this public meeting is encouraged. 

All interested groups or individuals are invited to attend this public meeting.  If you are interested in providing feedback and are unable to attend, you may send your comments via e-mail Donna Biederman at dbiederman@hollywoodfl.org.  

For additional information about this meeting contact the Department of Community and Economic Development at (954) 921- 3271

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See also

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/quick_topics/publications/wc/brownfields/resolutions/BF061102000_RES.pdf

6 Amazing Green Renovations That Turn Industrial Buildings into Architectural Gems 

by Helen Morgan, 04/14/12

http://inhabitat.com/6-amazing-green-renovations-that-turn-industrial-buildings-into-architectural-gems/

More on the Mary Ellen Klaas Syndrome and its negative effect on Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald readers: Fact-checking the Tallahassee bureau reporter, due to her sheer lack of curiosity and fairness about facts and context, is a full-time job; Her calling John Couriel a "sleeper" a month before FL Senate 35 race against Gwen Margolis is proof of how little attention she pays to what's going on, and her editors' sleepwalking ways

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More on the Mary Ellen Klaas Syndrome and its negative effect on Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald readers: Fact-checking the Tallahassee bureau reporter, due to her sheer lack of curiosity and fairness about facts and context, is a full-time job; Her calling John Couriel a "sleeper" a month before FL Senate 35 race against Gwen Margolis is proof of how little attention she pays to what's going on, and her editors' sleepwalking ways 

In a state that is, literally, drowning in them, Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Mary Ellen Klaas is consistently one of the best (and therefore among the worst) examples of a print reporter who reveals so much more than they think about their own views and notions about public policy, simply by the patterns that emerge by the facts they choose NOT to include, by whom she chooses NOT to interview or quote, and by what she conveniently forgets to mention to readers or remind them of.

More often than should be the case in a state this large -the fourth largest in the country I remind you- and whose capital is so poorly misunderstood by the great majority of its own citizens, so many of whom have NEVER been to Tallahassee...
It's the closest thing we have in the Southeast United States to the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea.

Is there any state in the United States with a larger percentage of its full-time residents who have NEVER been to its state capital than Florida's?
Having grown-up in South Florida after being born in San Antonio and living for a few years in Memphis before my family moved here when I was seven, this odd-yet-true fact about the people who live in this state has always been my reality and one of the reasons I believe this state has always been so much less than what it ought to be.
Look at how it's laid out, like it's still 1845.

In the same way that all those years of my being at Indiana University in Bloomington showed me that Indianapolis was the most perfectly-centered state capital in the country, because it was almost impossible to ever find anyone who'd lived in the state for more than a year who not only hadn't been there, but who also knew where a lot of places were located, like good restaurants, good parks and good people-watching spots..
It's their particular reality like this dubious fact is ours and here's why I bring this up.

For those of you reading this far from South Florida who don't ever think about it, the Florida state capital is actually at roughly the same longitude as Cincinnati, Ohio and is actually farther west in the country than Detroit in the Midwest
I take it for granted but...

Well, getting back to Klaas, an example of the sort of thing I've written about in emails to friends, acquaintances and others "in the loop" in the past because her articles are so consistently and objectively ridiculous, both the first time you read them and in retrospect months or years later.

I would say that, conservatively, I have probably written about her in similar emails about 25 times in the past 5 years.
But I seldom mentioned them here.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/09/3040954/margolis-is-outraised-by-surprise.html

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/senate-veteran-margolis-faces-fight-newcomer

ELECTION 2012

Margolis is outraised by surprise newcomer in Senate race  

A Republican newcomer is hoping his moderate message will unseat venerable state Sen. Gwen Margolis in a newly drawn Miami district.

BY MARY ELLEN KLAS, HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU

October 8, 2012

In what may be the sleeper legislative campaign of the season, Sen. Gwen Margolis, the veteran Democrat from Miami, is getting a run for her money — literally — from Miami Beach lawyer John Couriel in the newly drawn coastal district.

Margolis has loaned herself $160,000 to win re-election to Senate District 35, which stretches from Golden Beach to Homestead. But she is being out-raised and, thus far, outspent by Republican newcomer, John Couriel, a Miami Beach lawyer.

Couriel, 34, has collected $213,830 in campaign contributions to Margolis’ $174,093 and has won the endorsements of former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. A Harvard-educated lawyer, Couriel quit his job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami to run for the seat and vows to out-campaign Margolis, 78, a former state Senate president who was first elected to the state House in 1974.

“I’m hustling. I’ve never done this before but I’m not going to be out-worked,’’ Couriel said Monday during a break from walking door-to-door in Pinecrest.

Couriel has the trappings of broad Republican support, from the endorsements of party icons Rubio and Bush to a political committee running attack ads against his opponent. But there is one notable absence: his race is not among the must-watch contests receiving cash infusions from the Senate Majority, the political committees controlled by incoming Senate leader Don Gaetz, R-Niceville.

At a meeting with reporters last week, Gaetz singled out the races that could produce upsets and Couriel v. Margolis wasn’t among them.

“Sen. Gaetz and I are friends,’’ Margolis said Monday, noting that the Niceville Republican lived for years in her Miami Shores district and supported her.

Couriel says he is undaunted that he’s not getting more attention from Senate leadership. “I am assuming I need to do this on my own,’’ he said.

He said he’s running because he believes voters want a change. “The purpose of public office is not to honor someone by electing them to office. We elect someone to work for us and I’m running because I think I could do a better job.”

The district trends Democratic, with nearly 60 percent voting for Obama in 2008 and Alex Sink in 2010. But Democrats do not comprise a majority of the district — 45 percent are registered Democrat, compared to 28 percent registered as no party affiliated and 27 percent registered Republican.

Couriel believes he can reach independents and crossover voters with his moderate Republican message. He ticks off the statistics in previous races to make his case.

"Rick Scott doesn’t do well here,’’ Couriel said, but Republican Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater barely lost the district in 2010 and Rubio beat Democrat Kendrick Meek in the U.S. Senate race. "That tells me that many Democrats are soft.’’

Margolis has been a fixture in Miami Dade politics for decades, and Couriel must not only introduce himself to voters but bring down Margolis’ image in the process, an expensive task in the long coastal district.

“To effectively run an aggressive campaign against Sen. Margolis is going to take a lot of money,’’ said Christian Ulvert, a Margolis advisor and Democratic consultant.

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Here's the real kicker, which I described last Wednesday in yet another email to the same people who received a link to the first article above.

I swear, I'm not making this up. 

On Tuesday the Miami Herald endorsed a candidate for the Florida state Senate, John Couriel -a Miami native, Harvard Law School grad and currently an Assistant U.S. Attorney for Miami- whose first name they never mention -or anything else about him in their endorsement as it appears online!

So what the hell kind of endorsement is that?

John Couriel in FL Senate District 35 http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/15/3051440/state-senate-districts.html

More evidence of the very low state the Herald has fallen to before our eyes.
In this article from last week, the first time the Herald mentioned John Couriel since he  announced he was running, their reporter, rather ironically considering their poor coverage of local news and politics, chose to start the article thusly: "In what may be the sleeper legislative campaign of the season..."

Actually, it seems more like the reporter, Mary Ellen Klaas, is the one who is playing Rip Van Winkle, since she reported last week that four weeks before the election, a first-time candidate has out-raised and out-spent a forty-year career politician with very high name recognition, and who was formerly the President of the Florida State Senate and after that, a Miami-Dade Commissioner.

(Margolis is someone whom I met a lot while growing-up in NMB and being very involved in county Dem politics and campaigns, including at functions in North Miami circa mid-1970's that my mother attended when I was Junior High age.

She's the very same woman who, while I was living and working for 15 years in Washington, D.C., before it was finally built decades after it was needed, strongly considering making the William Lehman Causeway Bridge, that connects Aventura to Sunny Isles, a toll bridge, unless she got her way on something involving tax revenues!

Imagine traffic on glacial U.S.-1/Biscayne Blvd. now next to Aventura Mall if there was a toll road next door -actually worse than it is now if possible, which IS very hard to imagine, given how many times I've felt like I was going to run out of gas (and patience) while creeping along one block at a time in the afternoon. You remember, don't you Aventura, Sunny Isles and Hallandale Beach? Imagine if she had had her way!)

The new district is so enormous and obtuse that on the north it goes from west of the Florida Turnpike in Hollywood, down to an area in Miami-Dade County where I lived in the early 1980's when back from IU for the summer, many miles south of downtown Miami, back before they were calling it Pinecrest. Plus, that district as currently drawn also includes Key Biscayne!

See for yourself: http://maps.flsenate.gov/de1/map.html?plan=fl2002_sen&district=35

Key Biscayne?That's f-ing preposterous!!!Hollywood to Key Biscayne? Why?
Why do you think -so that Hispanics can vote for Hispanics, Blacks can vote for blacks and Jews can... and some reporter somewhere in the future can opine about why it's hard to find someone with voter wide appeal in South Florida who is not a demagogue.

In South Florida politics, outside of municipal races, you don't need to be smart, savvy, hard-working, conciliatory or even have good ideas that can make it possible for you to get positive things done, you simply need to be one of three favored ethnic demographics -that's it!

So given Couriel's not-insignificant accomplishment, why did Klaas and the newspapers NEVER write anything about him and his efforts all year, before last week?

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

Like how he managed to accomplish all this?

Why the apathy and indifference?

That's the media landscape we live in in the year 2012 in South Florida.
It's forever the dog that doesn't bark!

Yeah, plus everyone's an expert after the fact!
Not a sheep dog or a watch dog but rather a lapdog! 

BetterBroward.org: Hallandale GOP Executive Committee endorses Csaba Kulin, Michele Lazarow and Gerald Dean in non-partisan Hallandale Beach City Commission races, rejecting Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and Bill Julian - "Sanders and Julian simply cause more problems than they solve and we deserve better."

This past week, all over town, the email inboxes of Hallandale Beach's most-concerned and well-informed residents and small-business owners received what I can only characterize as a most-welcome bolt out-of-the-blue regarding the upcoming city elections on November 6th, 16 short days from today.

I reproduce, below, that positive news about calls for increased financial accountability, increased scrutiny of public policy and increased use of transparency at Hallandale Beach City Hall -and recommendations for just who will make that a reality- courtesy of BetterBroward.org. 

I also remind you that you can always check the most current (and past) campaign financial reports of all mayoral and city commission candidates here:
http://www.hallandalebeachfl.gov/index.aspx?NID=228

http://clicks.electionemail.com/preview/?c=19560&g=156&p=c513b343814d3805483bbb0790f65ab7

FANTASTIC NEWS! CANDIDATES FOR HALLANDALE COMMISSION RECEIVE VOTE RECOMMENDATIONS! []]        Three of the six candidates running for the non-partisan Hallandale Beach Commission have received unanimous "Vote For" recommendations from the  Hallandale GOP Executive Committee Members. Written GOP Voter's Guides are being delivered to all 4,500+ GOP voters in Hallandale. But we wanted to get this news out quickly for your consideration and benefit using Absentee and Early voting.      Hallandale GOP Committee members recommend you cast your TWO VOTES from among these three candidates. You may only cast two votes, but are electing three Commissioners. Why, well in a most undemocratic "sleight of hand" after the election process had begun, Commissioner Lewy maneuvered an unpublicized procedure causing you to be electing three Commissioners by only two votes. The third-highest vote-getter will be elected to the third seat by default. Thus, it is critical in this election you vote for two candidates for commission irrespective of having in the past cast just one vote in a "Bullet Vote."  The Hallandale GOP recommends you vote for two: Candidate   Recommend for:    Mr. Gerald Dean      N.W. Hallandale Conservative Activist "Palms Community Coalition, Inc." serving families in the NW section of Hallandale. Gerald opposes Sander's lack of service to the NW suburbs, all the while Sanders and his wife Jessica benefited personally from his commission seat. eMail:  gerald-dean@att.net  Phone:  (954) 610-0856   Mr. Csaba Kulin      Eastside experienced businessman, HB condo President, Community conservative activist, and extremely knowledgeable of city government and Commission shenanigans with our CRA monies. Csaba Opposes Red Light Cameras. Csaba has received endorsement from The Hispanic Vote.org organization. eMail:  Csaba@Kulin2012.com http://www.kulin2012.com     Phone: 440-759-6696  Ms. Michele Lazarow      East side community activist, long time HB Business owner, champion for small government, opposes intrusive local government regulation imposed under the the incumbent Sanders, Lewy and past Commissioner Julian. Ms. Lazarow has received the Endorsement from the Hallandale Beach Fire Fighters.    http://michelelazarow.com/ michele@michelelazarow.com  (305) 607-5683       The Local GOP leadership, your neighbors, are making these recommendations without regard to party affiliation but rather to achieve better Hallandale Beach Government. In fact  party affiliation has never been questioned in our consideration.         By Electing these three candidates to the Hallandale Beach Commission, We the PEOPLE stand a far better chance at getting a smaller, leaner lower cost city government without suffering loss of quality service. These are experienced business owners and community leaders who have evidenced a sincere desire to deliver good government for the people and put an end to cronyism.       We similarly recommend not voting for Sanders, Julian or Henigson, who are the remaining Commission candidates. Sanders and Julian are not recommended as they are part of the long term problems at City Hall and have exhibited lack of judgmental integrity and in the case of Sanders who is under investigation by the Broward Inspector General for possible self-dealing and receiving unjust enrichment in office. They are both simply a problems that need to be left behind. These two candidates have left a legacy of haunting problems that have pervaded the Council Chambers and its time to move them to the history files of Hallandale Beach.  Sanders and Julian simply cause more problems than they solve and we deserve better.        Ms. Henigson, while we believe she is sincere, lacks the community credentials that could draw our support at this time.       We urge you to consider these candidates carefully and cast your TWO votes from among the RECOMMENDED candidates WE DESERVE BETTER HALLANDALE GOVERNMENT   LET'S VOTE TO GET IT. Your Hallandale GOP Leadership Team: Mr. Gerald Williams Y001 Ms. Gineen Bresso, Y005 Ms. Emma Bumsteyn Y003 Dr. Sam Colton Y005 Mr. John Patchen Y003 Paul Cooney Y007 Chad Lincoln Y014 NOTICE: you can still request an Absentee Ballot from the Broward Supervisor of Election up to October 31st.  You may make this request by Telephone, Mail or Online with the Supervisor's office.  BROWARD S.O.E.  (954) 357-7050

Video: Channel 10 investigative reporter Bob Norman on the ethical dealings of Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper and The Related Group's $20k worth of campaign gratitude after her YES vote for their Beachwalk project while the most-affected HB residents were still gone for the summer; @Mayor Cooper, @SandersHB

Above, looking east at Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's large 2" X 8" campaign sign at the corner of Hallandale Beach Blvd. & S.E. 26th Avenue, at the foot of the west side of the State Road 858 Bridge over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. October 19, 2012 photos by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

It's the sort of prime advertising location in the city that comes to you when you've been nothing but Bosom Buddies with The Related Group and their merry band of secondary players for years-and-years, like Greenberg Traurig attorney Debbie Orshefsky and Richard Cannone, a Planning Administrator and registered lobbyist for Calvin Giordano & Associates, and not incidentally, the city's former Director of Development Services, whom concerned and observant residents long thought consistently worked harder for big  developers and their minion pals trying to get a deal at HB City Hall than he ever did in representing the best long-term interests of Hallandale Beach residents and taxpayers.

I know because I was one of those concerned and observant residents, which led me to write this about him on November 9, 2010 Addition by subtraction: Richard Cannone leaving City of Hallandale Beach for PA; let's hope his replacement is more forthcoming, honest than he was   http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/addition-by-subtraction-richard-cannone.html

All of these players in the development game have been lavish in their praise for Mayor Cooper after her very hard push in mid-summer for the approval of The Related Group's 31-story project on the water, despite its unanimous rejection by the city's Planning & Zoning Board.

Mayor Cooper was especially eager to vote on this and get it done before most of the HB  residents most directly affected by the project could return here in late August. How much praise?

Over $20,000 worth of praise. 

WPLG-TV, Miami

Bob Norman's Blog

Should it be illegal?

By Bob Norman

Published On: Oct 18 2012 10:20:21 AM EDT  

Updated On: Oct 18 2012 11:07:10 AM EDT

Video is at: http://www.local10.com/news/blogs/bobnorman/Should-it-be-illegal/-/3223354/17039128/-/v2xsce/-/index.html

As we have seen with specificity here on the blog the past two weeks, when you are Joy Cooper and you have lots of generous developer friends, plus their friends, you can afford to buy nice campaign re-election signs with $20,000, even if Team Cooper carelessly erects many of them in places that are illegal under the city's own rules, rules she knows well, having both voted for them and lived with them for the past ten years.

But what are simple rules to you when your real estate development pals are so damn generous with their campaign checks?

And let's not forget strip mall developer R.K. Centers of Sunny Isles, who not only writes incumbents like Joy Cooper big checks, but also allows her large campaign signs to be placed on their prominent properties along Hallandale Beach Blvd. For instance, near the city's one and only Publix. 

R.K. Centers also fully supports Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former Comm. William "Bill" Julian, whose signs appear in front of the Publix property, with Julian also on the opposite side of the street near two separate entrance to Winn-Dixie and to Panera's, Boston Market and Starbucks.

Together, these two unethical characters are three bricks shy of a load, but the fact that they're not bright or attentive very much appeals to R.K. because it makes it easier for them to get what they want around here, like the very large sign for Five Guys that on Wednesday they sought a variance for at their property at the Sage Bagel Plaza.

The proposed sign  is far too large according to the city's own rules, and was rejected by the city's Planning & Zoning Board. You tell me, what do you think is going to happen in the end when Cooper and Sanders vote on it for a second and final time in a few weeks?

Yes, real estate developers just love Joy Cooper, and it's easy to see why. 
She's the mayor who just can't say NO. 
And neither are Cooper's Rubber Stamps: Sanders and Julian.

Above and below: An open door policy for developers is Mayor Joy Cooper's credo. "Always has been, always will be." At least for another two weeks! (The gate was already open -looks broken to me.)

Looking east towards the Intracoastal and The Related Group's three giant condo towers on State Road A1A/South Ocean Drive, The Beach Club, and to the north by a few hundred feet in Hollywood, Related's The Apogee , still under construction, where the construction crane is pictured. Here's what that is supposed to look like when finished: http://www.apogeebeachcondos.com/

Above, looking northeast from the site of the Beachwalk project towards the State Road 858/HBB bridge, with hotels and condos in Hollywood on State Road A1A in the distance.

All October 19, 2012 photos above by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Greenberg Traurig attorney Debbie Orshefsky at the lectern making the formal Power Point presentation to the Hallandale Beach City Commission for her client, The Related Group, on behalf of their Beachwalk development project on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, with their army of professional hired hands and lobbyists seated in the first thee rows. So why was HB Chamber of Commerce (and Lady-in-Pink) President Carole Pumpian sitting there if she wasn't being paid? Hmm-m... June 6, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. All Rights Reserved.

Back on July 29, 2012, I wrote about the quid pro quo, pay-to-play culture that exists in Broward County and which is more self-evident here more than most other cities, in a blog post I titled, Approval for The Related Group's Beachwalk project in Hallandale Beach pays off quickly for Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders. Follow the money? Okay, here it is: $2,500 on page 4 of Sanders' most-recently filed Treasurer's Report is from individuals & entities supporting Beachwalk's approval, including, predictably, Greenberg Traurig; #HallandaleBeach, @SandersHB, @MayorCooper http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/approval-for-related-groups-beachwalk.

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria

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I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.

The Washington Post

How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution

By Jackson Diehl

October 14, 2012

Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.

The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.

Read the rest of the column at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html


Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.

U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 

Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV

Absolutely pummeled! Hallandale Beach Comm. Anthony A. Sanders & ex-Comm. Bill Julian both bomb at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board meeting for HB candidates Monday morning, while Csaba Kulin, Michele Lazarow and Gerald Dean shine while enthusiastically making the case for a pro-reform City Hall that actually serves taxpayers to replace the corrupt and unethical one we've been stuck with for years under Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew; Kulin, Lazarow & Dean recount in detail most of the major issues and recent scandals; @SandersHB, @AlexLewy

Hallandale Beach City Hall. October 13, 2012 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2012 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved.

Not that this news will come as any great shock to anyone who pays close attention to what actually happens in Hallandale Beach, but if you didn't already hear, the word on the street courtesy of some of the people who were at the table themselves is that sphinx-like HB Comm. Anthony A. Sanders and former ten-year commissioner, general laughingstock and 2012 candidate William "Bill" Julian absolutely bombed at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board meeting Monday morning before their three-employees asking questions.

That group consisted of editorial writer Douglas Lyons, columnist Michael Mayo, and someone else whose name I have forgotten at the moment, speaking to the six City Commission candidates for a little over an hour at the Sun-Sentinel's HQ, following the one hour mayoral candidate interview with Mayor Joy Cooper and Comm. Keith London.

Typically, both Sanders and Julian seemed completely unprepared for what they were walking into, which is how they usually appeared to me and others observing them at City Commission meetings over the years, unprepared to get at the heart of any particular matter other than to repeat or mumble things they's heard city staff tell them prior to the meeting.

Talk about a lack of work ethic!

Sanders and Julian seem to have thought they were going to a friendly family Bar BQ dinner, somewhere where everyone would say nice things about each other, instead of a vetting panel of serious people who didn't care about their feelings who would be asking probing questions about their truly terrible and embarrassing records in office, as well as ask them to explain what their future plans were if re-elected and elected in their respective cases.

What Julian and Sanders also clearly hadn't counted on so much was not only the directness of the probing questions fired at them by the three employees of the Sun-Sentinel, but the glee and eagerness with which three of the other four candidates -my friends Csaba Kulin, Michele Lazarow and Gerald Dean- were prepared to positively hammer them over-and-over with cold-hard facts and votes they couldn't refute and even some embarrassing questions and admissions, too. 

Surprise!

From all accounts, more than three years after-the-fact, Sanders could STILL NOT intelligently

explain to the Sun-Sentinel with a straight face what the specific facts and context of the

sale of his and his wife's land to the city were, and why, 

a.) they received more money than the property was really worth,

b.) why there was and STILL IS no city plan for the building that taxpayers like you and me 

paid $235,000 for, but only receive the measly sum of $20 a year in rent from a non-profit run

by Dr. Deborah Brown, who is, 

c.) a longtime Joy Cooper ally who has been receiving tens of thousands of dollars a year in CRA funds and city grants.

The folks from the Sun-Sentinel simply were NOT buying the cock-and-bull story that Sanders was trying to peddle to the, and it didn't help him at all that Michael Mayo was one of the three people peppering him with knowing questions since Mayo has already written several fact-filled columns on the land transaction over the last few years that positively blister Sanders and unmask his carefully-crafted image and show him as the not-so-ethical pastor he is.

Mayo was all-too-familiar with the germane facts that Sanders has found far too painful to share with HB taxpayers in public at any point in the last three years, as I've been saying here on the blog for so very long.

Sanders basically cut his own throat in public and was exposed for what he is, which is fine with me.

I only wish there was video of it so I could play it for you here, so you could see it for yourself and many people in town could finally admit that they were conned.

By the way, lest we forget, thanks to a Bill Julian motion made in 2009, Sanders & Co. get to keep using the city-owned building for free until it is leveled... whatever year or

decade that turns out to be.

If you can believe it, despite you and me and seemingly everyone else here talking about it for so long -and so disappointingly, after the HB City Commission essentially changed the election rules in mid-course and dis-enfranchised us- the folks at the Sun-Sentinel did NOT know that thanks to the doings of that same City Commission, three candidates will be elected to office in three weeks, on November 6th, even though the ballots will still remain marked to Vote for No More Than Two -NOT THREE.

That particular point came up when my friend Csaba Kulin complained about the way the HB City Commission -thanks almost entirely to the partisan and selfish efforts of Comm. Lewy, a.k.a. Lewy the Liar- had completely botched the entire election process by cancelling the originally-scheduled January 15th vote for someone to serve the remaining two years of Comm. London's term, because he resigned effective Election Day in order to run for mayor against Mayor Cooper in three weeks.

(You know, where Lewy ignored the fact that prominent Broward Democrat Angelo Castillo already did in Pembroke Pines and what Charlotte Rodstrom was and is now doing in Fort Lauderdale that Lewy pretends that he's so very, very upset about here -London running in January for his old seat if he lost to Cooper. 

But, of course, Lewy is far too chicken to ever say anything publicly about Castillo and Rodstrom, of course. 

Nope, he just keeps his mouth shut because he knows what would happen to him, the unctuous career-politician-in-training, if Broward Dems got a whiff of what he'd been saying in HB about London and heard him say the same thing about Castillo and Rodstrom, even though it's the exact same thing, 

yes, once again proving that for the young self-aggrandizing Lewy, always trying to play the angles, principles are more a matter of convenience than anything else.)

According to what Csaba told me hours later on Monday afternoon, the folks from the Sun-Sentinel were, literally, dumb-founded at finding out how this process had been mishandled -intentionally as we all know- and that the three of them seemed aghast that they did NOT know such a crucial fact before the meeting started.

To which I say, yeah, so imagine how WE feel, knowing that we are being prevented from voting for a third candidate in an election for an all At-Large City Commission where three candidates WILL be elected, not two.