That curious news re pro #Jeb, pro #amnesty, anti #Trump Miami TV host Helen Aguirre Ferré getting hired by the RNC sounds very, well, Dolphins-like. And when has that been good for fans or anyone since 2000?

That curious news re pro #Jeb, pro #amnesty, anti #Trump Miami TV host Helen Aguirre Ferré getting hired by the RNC sounds very, well, Dolphins-like. And when has that been good for fans or anyone since 2000?

Wow! Where to even start with this bit of curious news I could have never predicted.

The RNC’s New Hispanic Media Director Bashed Trump Nonstop For Months https://t.co/GijJhX02fU via me and @buzzfeedandrew

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 2, 2016

Honestly malpractice that I didn't include her saying "I'll go get honey" in order to swallow bitter Trump pill. https://t.co/drepXf8o3R

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 2, 2016

Problem is RNC wants a serious operative w/ experience working w/ Spanish-lang networks but not going to go thru all of their interviews.

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 2, 2016

This speaks to the disconnect between the RNC and Spanish language media. He's been a villain there for a year now. https://t.co/2cVbkmgx6s

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 2, 2016

So, pro #Jeb, pro #amnesty, anti-Donald Trump Miami TV host Helen Aguirre Ferré's 
longstanding public criticism of Trump counts for little with the powers-that-be at the RNC these days, as they've now hired her for a task that she seems particularly ill-prepared for, and even worse, will make a bad situation worse, if possible.
It's like hiring a run-oriented head football coach when you have a young, healthy Dan Marino as your QB. A #disconnect.

The story has gottten lots of traction in the national press, but so far, has stirred little public notice or critical commentary in South Florida where Ferré and her frequently condescending attitudes were not just tolerated but embraced, in large part because her Conventional Wisdom attitudes almost always were 100% in sync with those of the Miami Herald Editorial Board & the perpetually misfiring Downtown Miami Biz community's. :-(

That's why despite a mountain of self-evident facts that would show objective readers how true my criticism of Ferré and her style is, it's hardly surprising that Ferré, thus far, has received almost complete kid gloves treatment from many in the community and press who know better, including former Miami Herald reporter Beth Reinhard, now of the Wall Street Journal.
Reinhard is someone whom I have long criticized on this blog over the years for some very sound reasons about basic fairness, bias, clarity, context and accuracy, as anyone taking the time to check the blog's archives for past posts on Reinhard can discover for themselves.

See all the tweets about Helen Aguirre Ferré's hiring here, inc. the Reinhard tweet

https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Helen%20Aguirre%20Ferr%C3%A9%22%20&src=typd

Honestly, over the past dozen years, Helen Aguirre Ferré may've been the single most-over-rated and over-praised woman in all of South Florida, in or out of public policy. 

And for a TV show on a PBS affilate in Miami like WPBT-TV that 

a.) hardly anyone watches, including even me, and that 

b.) has often seemed more like a not-so-funny sketch comedy parody of a TV chat show, because of how often she and her guests are in almost complete agreement, regardless of the issue.

If Helen Aguirre Ferré was doing a good job, wouldn't I have mentioned the show more than once in the past nine years of doing this blog?

It's not been a show to take unpopular positions or inform and enlighten the South Florida electorate so much as it has often seemed to exist merely to hearten true-believers in whatever line the South Florida Establishment's status quo had taken, so Ferre could echo it like a cheerleader.

Usually against meaningful government or political reform of the sort that the South Florida Establishment was afraid of, regardless of party affiliation, geography, race or nationality. 

And forget about Ferré talking out-loud in detail about how truly awful the caliber of the South Florida media has become the past dozen years in simply covering local govt./issues/politics fairly and accurately, and why that was so. 
No, a truth-to-power, straight-talker Helen Aguirre Ferré is NOT.

That's why to me, her show has always seemed so terribly underwhelming, frustrating and disappointing, especially compared to what it could have been -and should have been for the part of the South Florida populace that actually wants to be well-informed, which to be sure, has never been a majority.

Ferré's hiring by the RNC seems destined to just draw more more media attention to her own personal track record in the public eye and her condescendning political attitudes, instead of the task at hand, which was not an easy one.

That is surely NOT what the RNC needs the next five months going into November's election.

Frankly, Ferré's hiring by the RNC has the feel of any of a hundred awful personnel moves the woebegone Miami Dolphins have made the past 15 years, to their fans' dismay. :-(

Dave 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

The show is Jeopardy! and the question is: "Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000"

"Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvhOI7Z9oKU

Above, a video showing a side of American pop culture that you'd think the South Florida news media would've already shown over-and-over by now.

In any case, seeing it puts me in the mood to recall a thing or two I once wrote in 2009 about Marco Rubio, back when the South Florida news media had all but conceded the 2010 GOP U.S. Senate nomination to Charlie Crist.

But some of us could see that what was so appealing about him to us would also prove just as appealing with Florida voters, confounding the "experts" who discounted his talk about taking the Constitution seriously.

The excerpt below is from a June 22nd, 2009 email to a Hallandale Beach friend who'd first told me weeks before about the underdog Rubio's appearance that June night in Hallandale Beach, which took place before an overflow audience at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center.

All of my photos below are from June 22, 2009, Hallandale Beach.



That's Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the table.

-----

As I said earlier, if I don't get that info from you tonight, I'll write the basics about his appearance at the HB Cultural Center Tuesday night, and try to post it before I go to sleep tonight.

I may(?) also post the clueless Beth Reinhard column from Saturday's Herald that was one of the worst of the many bad columns she's penned since I returned to South Florida:
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1105950.html
She's truly awful and bereft of either insight or originality.

But by embracing DeMint, Rubio risks moving too far to the right. DeMint advocates sending illegal immigrants back to their home countries and making English the official language of the United States, which could mean that Rubio's Spanish-speaking constituents would not be able to get ballots and other government documents in their first language.


I'm going to be picking that column apart soon on my blog, as it is full not only of intellectual laziness, but factual errors, not the least of which is the comments about the language of the ballots, since the DOJ has oversight over certain states because of the federal Voting Rights Act, and that includes Florida.
You know, where we live?

Plus, because South Florida's county officials have decided that it's good public policy that ballots also appear in Spanish (and Creole), and that is supported by the majority of the local populace, Reinhard's argument is a straw man.

A good reporter would already know that.
That Beth Reinhard doesn't, or acts like she doesn't, gives you some true sense of her profound political ignorance.
Not that this is exactly Breaking News to me.

See also the New York Times:
Justices Let Stand a Central Provision of Voting Rights Act
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23scotus.html

Frankly, I almost always groan after reading something Reinhard's written.

In fact, it was after reading some nonsense she'd written about Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, while I was having breakfast with my father at Denny's, that I decided I needed to finally listen to my friends back in D.C., who'd been urging me for years to start a blog when I was still living there.

Right, when all my media and political connections were close-at-hand and would've proved very useful to me in sharing some very interesting stories, anecdotes and insight that I was either eyewitness to or privy to, that had heretofore remained the domain of party chatter among very close friends with a curiosity matching mine.

10:35 p.m.
Just got your new email with attendee info. Thanks!

Confirmed Speakers: RNC Secretary Sharon Day, Broward GOP Chairman Chip LaMarca, Marco Rubio Candidate for US Senate, Lt. Col. Allen West Candidate for US Congress, Joyce Kaufman 850 AM Radio Host, and a special video presentation from Michael Steele. Performing our National Anthem, National Vocalist Lou Galterio.

Hallandale Beach Blog endorses Beth Reinhard & Charlie Crist's departure - asks they get escort to airport so they don't miss their flights out of FL

I've been sitting on this for months just waiting for Election Day to get here.

Below is an excerpt of an email that I wrote back on January 23rd, 2010 and sent out to a few dozen people following the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat held for 47 years by Ted Kennedy.
(And when was the last time you saw the media talk about him? It's like he died. Or, alternatively, booked a flight on Oceanic Flight 815.)

Most of you know who come here regularly know where I stand on the subject of Dan Gelber, as well as his his pack of supporters, which includes some of the most anti-democratic and unethical pols in Broward County.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search?q=%22Dan+Gelber%22

He's far too ambitious for his own good and doesn't have a record of being honest with voters.

He will lose the FL AG race to Pam Bondi, whom I will be voting for, as I think she'll set many media hearts aflutter as she tries to improve on Bill McCollum's decent track record and fight Obamacare.

Pam Bondi - "About Me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5LbUFAJn6o

Organized Crime at It's Worst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vds3WkKOrAw

Obviously, this was written before we all got the good news that Beth Reinhard would be leaving the Herald and heading to Washington and The National Journal.

My worst fear is that her column will be replaced by -dare I say it- Patricia Mazzei.
I will be devoting an entire post on Mazzei soon that zeroes in on some particularly irksome articles of her's that all shared the same weakness, regardless of subject matter.

Once you notice it, trust me, it's hard to ignore when you see her articles.
You'll find yourself actively looking for it.

Sort of like the way that once I knew that Campbell Brown had a certain facial tic when she was on-air, reporting the news, it was hard not to watch her and just wait for it.

-----

Just a note to let you know that per some of my hints of late, I already had a ton of things I'd already written that were going to be posted on my blog tomorrow. Subjects include: ...the Dan Gelber vs. Dave Aronberg race for AG, and Scott Brown's remarkable triumph, plus a couple of anti-Beth Reinhard pieces, exposing her infamous shallowness when it reached new jaw-dropping lows lately.
(Seriously, five sentences about the race to replace Meek?)

But then I read this article below this morning, after which I'm apoplectic, and now, I may have to re-schedule some things just to keep my head from exploding. How does the chief political reporter for the largest paper in the state NOT mention in a story ostensibly about insiders vs. outsiders, that Gelber's father was/is a longtime judge, someone who knew everyone who was ANYONE in Miami-Dade even BEFORE he was a judge?

I even knew who his father was when I was a kid in the 1970's -it's beyond incredulous! http://www.miamidade.gov/ethics/members.asp

Of course, rather than do like Gelber did, and work for his dad, the judge, one summer... or, as the Boston Globe put it:

At the end of his junior year at Tufts University, Scott P. Brown did not take a typical summer job like many of his classmates. Instead, he spent two months in Army basic training at Fort Dix, N.J., after joining the Massachusetts National Guard.

I've now read ALL the Boston Globe stories on Brown for the past few weeks and am even more impressed with him than before.

I will be sharing some of what I learned about him in some of those posts, though they may be after Sunday now just because I'm so tired of writing. By the way, here from Thursday is the best thing written on Scott Brown thus far, featuring some great investigatory sleuthing by the New York Times to connect-the-dots:

G.O.P. Used Energy and Stealth to Win Seat
January 20, 2010

This article is by Adam Nagourney, Jeff Zeleny, Kate Zernike and Michael Cooper.

BOSTON — The e-mail message from a Massachusetts supporter to one of the leaders of the Tea Party movement arrived in early December. The state was holding a special election to fill the seat held by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, it said, and conditions were ripe for a conservative ambush: an Election Day in the dead of winter with the turnout certain to be low.

“To be honest, we kind of looked at it and said, this is a long shot,” said Brendan Steinhauser, the director of state campaigns for FreedomWorks, which has become an umbrella for Tea Party groups. But the group was impressed by the determination of organizers in this decidedly Democratic state and was intrigued by the notion that this could be a way to effectively derail federal health care legislation.

Read the rest of the article at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/us/politics/21reconstruct.html

This is the single best-written article I've read on any subject the entire year.

In the hard copy of this, they even have a chart showing the number of events Brown and Martha Coakley attended the past few weeks, and as you may already know by now, he outworked her 3:1.
Truth be told, some of those Globe stories appear brilliant in retrospect.

-------
Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/beth-reinhard/story/1440999.html

Florida's top candidates for U.S. Senate hardly political outsiders

By Beth Reinhard

January 23, 2010

Out of the cascade of commentary about Tuesday's upset by a Republican in Democrat-rich Massachusetts came this gem from state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, who used to shoot hoops with the U.S. senator-elect in college:

"To the legions of Republicans in Florida who are claiming the 'I'm Scott Brown mantle,' let me say this: 'I know Scott Brown, Scott Brown was a friend of mine . . . you're no Scott Brown.' ''

The riff on the famous slap at Republican Dan Quayle after he compared himself to Jack Kennedy during the 1988 vice presidential debate was spot on. The leading candidates for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat -- Gov. Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek -- are all career politicians who commit sins of omission when they distance themselves from the establishment.

QUITE A LEAP

The governor is the biggest insider of them all. Crist compared Brown's avowed commitment to "the people's seat'' in Massachusetts to his own claim to be the "people's governor'' of Florida. It's quite a leap for the sitting governor of the nation's fourth largest state, a vice presidential shortlister, and the once-presumed Republican nominee to claim kinship with a truck-driving state senator who faced a double-digit deficit in the polls. (Do they even let pickups onto Fisher Island, where Crist's wife owns a $3.2 million manse?)

Crist's scorn for "the radical Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda'' when he congratulated Brown also rang hollow since the economic stimulus package he supported sits at the very top of that agenda. Crist pointed out that he had spoken to Brown after his victory, as if sound waves made them soul mates.

While Rubio is certainly the underdog in the GOP race, the former speaker of the Florida House and a six-figures-earning lawyer is no political outsider either. In the last 11 years, Rubio was out of public office for only the last one -- a part of his resume he frequently skips over in his stump speech. Can he honestly lay the blame for the recession at the feet of Crist and President Barack Obama and claim to have had nothing to do with it?

Rubio has to stretch pretty far to the left to put his arm around Brown, who backs abortion rights and the state health insurance program in Massachusetts. Rubio touted his participation Friday in the "Virtual March for Life'' on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Earlier this week, he backed Attorney General Bill McCollum's claim that the pending healthcare legislation is unconstitutional because it requires people to buy insurance. Like in Massachusetts.

PART OF THE MAJORITY

As for Meek, he does have one thing in common with Brown: Political analysts expect him to lose the general election. But while Brown was competing against the Kennedy dynasty in Massachusetts, Meek practically inherited his seat in Congress from his mother, Carrie Meek. She staved off potential rivals by waiting until the last minute to rule out another term.

That part of his bio didn't come up when campaign manager Abe Dyk said: "Having worked as a skycap for tips, as a Florida State trooper and having led the Coalition to Reduce Class Size, Kendrick Meek is the candidate best positioned to deliver that change as a U.S. senator.''

Ahem. Meek is part of the Democratic majority who sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He has roots in Liberty City but has long roamed the halls of Washington and Tallahassee. The closest he ever got to a nude Cosmo centerfold like Brown? A mention in a celebrity blog called "Young Black & Fabulous.''

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

-----

http://www.pambondi.com/home/

The FL-17 Congressional race the South Florida news media ignores

My comments follow this pointless Jan. 30th, 2010
Beth Reinhard column on Jeb Bush that didn't
need to be written and which, fortuitously, seems
to have been completely ignored by readers.

Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1454784.html
Jeb Bush is back, and some think he's looking presidential
Beth Reinhard
January 30, 2010

MIAMI — When Jeb Bush left office four years ago, his public appearances were as scarce as bi-partisan man hugs.

He didn't want to upstage his successor in the governor's mansion nor his brother in the White House. Instead, he quietly cashed in by joining corporate boards and an elite speakers bureau, penned policy essays and gave infrequent interviews to conservative media.

But in recent months, as the Republican Party of Florida has grappled with a leadership vacuum, Bush's political profile has grown as fast as the national deficit.

He headlined a fundraiser for Bill McCollum's gubernatorial campaign, starred in a YouTube video touting Jeff Atwater's campaign for state chief financial officer and helped install state Sen. John Thrasher as the state party's heir apparent -- all the while looming on the sidelines of the fierce Republican Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

The capper came Thursday when, at the top of the 7 o'clock hour, right after Vice President Joe Biden, Bush made a rare network television appearance on NBC's Today Show. The intensely private Bush's interview with the overly familiar Matt Lauer rattled Florida political circles.

Was this the beginning of a Jeb juggernaut that would culminate in a 2012 presidential bid?

"My wife called me immediately and said he looked presidential,'' said Thrasher, who as the former House speaker helped Bush lay down his agenda. "I said, `Who knows? We'll see.' I'm ready to go to Iowa any time he's ready.''

Bush's comments about Crist's support for President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan got the most attention, but his call for Democrats and Republicans to work together was the biggest clue to his national ambitions.

"I think that leaders on both sides of the aisle need to figure out where there is common ground and at least focus on that,'' he said. "It's one thing to give a good speech. The other thing is to invite people that don't agree exactly with your point of view to build consensus.''

This from the governor who presided over some of Florida's most hyper-partisan battles of the last decade? Who helped declare his brother the winner of the 2000 presidential recount, threw out affirmative action with the "One Florida'' program, made the FCAT the end-all be-all of the public schools and insisted on getting in between brain-damaged Terri Schiavo and her husband?

But Bush's front-page days are long gone. Lady Gaga could learn a thing or two from the ex-governor, who has stayed relevant without killing us with overexposure. He picks and chooses candidates to support and the causes that matter most to him. He recently made a rare appearance in the Capitol to promote education reforms and helped launch a national group to elect Republican state lawmakers.

Though he hasn't given an endorsement, Bush has been an undeniable presence in the Crist-Rubio race. Consider: His well-placed compliments for Rubio and subtle digs at Crist. The involvement of his family's longtime fundraiser, Ann Herberger, in the Rubio campaign. The reception co-hosted by sons George P. and Jeb Jr. that raised $100,000 for Rubio.

If the race goes down to the wire, or if Crist launches a full-scale attack against Rubio, some Republicans predict Bush will speak out.

"If Jeb is going to publicly support Marco, it's better to keep the suspense building and do it closer to the election when voters are paying attention,'' said Rubio supporter Ana Navarro.
"Jeb Bush stumping through Florida for a Republican candidate makes a difference. Jeb Bush knows that. Marco Rubio knows that. And I suspect Charlie Crist fears that.''


Presidential?
No sane, well-informed person thinks that

Above, a perfect example of the longstanding
problem at the Miami Herald: the non-story
that crowds out the more deserving.

It's been an epidemic over there since I first
returned to South Florida from the Washington, D.C.
area in late 2003, after 15 years of reading
at least 5-6 newspapers most days,
plus countless journals and weekly magazines
covering all aspects of public policy.
Not bragging, mind you, just stating the facts
so you know where I'm coming from.

When I first started to write a few quick thoughts
about this particular Beth Reinhard column last
Wednesday night, February 3rd at about 9:35 p.m.,
more than three full days after it was published,
this column had elicited zero "recommends"
from readers and zero reader comments.
Like it was never seen... a ghost.
And like a ghost, lighter-than-air.

That's very amusing to me because when I first
saw it shortly after it was posted online, I was
initially tempted to leave a biting maybe even
snarky comment about what I thought this
column really shows -contempt for the
diminishing number of Herald readers.

But since as we all know, the Herald's online
comment site allows readers less space to
comment than almost any Florida newspaper
or media site around, and I have an infinite
amount of space here at Home Sweet Blog,
once again I wrote myself a note about this,
and resolved to return to it a few days later.
In this case, I've waited to see how it all
turned-out.

(Someone finally wrote a comment last
Thursday afternoon on the Herald's site
for the Saturday morning column
-five long days of invisibility.)

That it was ignored for so long pleases me
to no end, since it only serves to confirm
once again what I've thought for a long time
about the Herald's downward spiral in
quality and sense of purpose.

To illustrate this, let me bring up something
that will be before us for months this year,

Consider the fact that though we've known
since last summer that South Florida's
FL-17 would have a new face come this
November, rather than take advantage
of that and show local readers and viewers
what's going on, the local media's abysmal
coverage of that congressional campaign
thus far has consisted largely of five
sentences from Beth Reinhard of the
Herald, one of which was a list of candidates
names.
Talk about underwhelming!

The story had all the electricity of a list
of Honorable Mention winners at the
County Youth Fair being read on a
scratchy elementary school PA system.

If you doubt me, here's the proof.
Read it for yourself and try to explain
it away.


Miami Herald
CONGRESS
11 seeking Meek's seat BETH REINHARD
December 2, 2010

U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek's campaign for the Senate has unleashed a torrent of candidates vying for his Miami-Dade congressional seat in 2010.

Eleven candidates -- 10 of them Democrats -- are running in the predominantly black district.

Haitian businessman and civic activist Rudy Moise announced he was running in October, held a press conference Tuesday in Liberty City.

The other Democratic candidates are Leroy Adam, Marleine Bastien, former state Rep. Phillip Brutus, state Rep. James Bush III, Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, state Rep. Yolly Roberson, Roderick Vereen, Miami Gardens Councilman André Williams, and state Sen. Frederica Wilson.

The only Republican candidate is Corey Poitier.

-----

Satisfied?
More than two full months later, that's still
IT.
That's the sum of the Herald's coverage
of FL-17.



So, in a year full of dynamic and interesting
possibilities, where we've already seen the
unexpected occur in Massachusetts, despite
the D.C. and Boston political chattering class
poo-pooh Scott Brown's chances of being
elected to the U.S. Senate, pronouncements
which the people of Massachusetts promptly
and overwhelmingly ignored, rather than
getting pro-actively engaged and follow the
eleven announced candidates themselves
as they to forge coalitions locally and see
how their their opinions and ideas evolve
-or not-on a whole range of issues,
like health care, Cap & Trade, etc.,
what has the Herald and the rest of the
South Florida news media done?

They've chosen to ignore the one new
Congressperson that all of South Florida
knows we'll have, and instead, given much
more political attention to what, exactly?

To Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's phony
anti-democratic Tele-Town Halls, which had
all the excitement of day-old bagels served cold?

No, the Herald and Company completely
downplayed her inability to appear before any
crowd that wasn't pre-selected and staged.

In fact, the Herald's Editorial Board and
the local TV political reporters didn't even feel
the need to go after low-hanging fruit that was
positively begging for some mention.

Even when Town Halls were front page
news stories all over the country, and a small
reminder of what we were all taught was the
cornerstone of participatory democracy,
they resisted the urge to sagely mention that
DWS' aloof, robotic manner and lack of humility
and unwillingness to publicly meet her
constituents -and opponents- when she's
a certified gerrymandered shoo-in, makes it
much harder for labels like DEMAGOGUE
not to stick to her like glue -forever.

Despite all the media kisses and kid-glove
treatment she's received over the years locally,
as well as the likes of MSNBC's Chris Matthews,
and the silly talk of bigger office in store for her,
DEMAGOGUES like her rarely if ever rise in
Washington beyond a certain level.
I saw it on Capitol Hill for myself, year-after-year.

Regardless of how liberal or conservative someone
may be when they vote on Capitol Hill, personality
traits still count for a lot, and Members of Congress
do NOT usually vote for people to fill party leadership
posts who actually irritate or annoy them too much
to be trusted with power.
Nancy Pelosi is the exception to the rule.

It's also why if the GOP ever takes over in the next
few years, it's more likely than not that Mike Pence
of Indiana will be the Speaker of the House, not
current House Minority leader John Boehner,
from Ohio, who rubs a lot of Republican members
the wrong way, and whom many do not personally
find either savvy or trustworthy enough to be Speaker.
(You'll see.)

That's why I wrote years ago on my blog that unlike
was often the case with congressmen who have
represented me over the years, like Dante Fascell,
Frank McCloskey and Lee Hamilton,
two of whom I saw on a weekly basis for years
while I lived in the Washington area, no Member
of Congress would ever think to ask DWS what
she thinks in order to help them make up their
mind on a tough approaching vote.
DWS is a cog in a machine, like The Borg.

Free will does not compute with her.

Her use of pre-selected crowds at her Tele-Town
Halls, in a district where she is guaranteed
re-election, is but the latest and most obvious
proof of that.
I almost feel sorry for her, except for the fact
that she has consciously chosen to go the route
she's gone, so whatever happens to her,
it's her own fault.

Now, with an election to decide the FL-17 seat
in less than nine months, in a year when the
GOP could/may take back 40 House seats,
NONE of the announced candidates has publicly
campaigned in the Broward County portion
of this district, which as it happens, includes
my own part of Hallandale Beach.

Personally, I've never voted for someone
for Congress whom I have not met or
spoken to.
I'm not about to start.

So here's a question.
What would happen if an articulate, well-informed
moderate Anglo candidate were to jump into the
FL-17 congressional race against what is now an
all African-American, all Miami-Dade County group
that doesn't or won't campaign in Broward County?

Would it take something like that for the South Florida
news media to finally pay attention to the campaign
race?

Perhaps not, but at least then some real issues
would finally be raised and discussed publicly,
and the self-evident weaknesses of so many
of the announced candidates could be properly
exposed to voter's scrutiny, and a well-qualified
candidate could actually emerge who represents
the WHOLE congressional district, not just part
of it.

That is NOT happening now.

Something to think about.

In future posts here, I'll have some good
probing questions for you to ask FL-17
candidates, especially if they want to get
votes from the well-informed people I know
and speak to regularly.





Broward County Ethics Committee meets on
Wednesday mrning at County HQ on Andrews
Avenue, Room 430, 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

See my previous article on South Florida news
media ignoring the FL-17 race, here. from
Sunday, November 8, 2009
South Florida media blows easy lay-up on health care reform -what else is new?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/south-florida-media-blows-easy-lay-up.html

Marco Rubio appearance in Hallandale Beach Tuesday night at 6 p.m.

Marco Rubio campaign appearance in Hallandale Beach

Tuesday June 23rd

6:00pm - 9:00 p.m. Hallandale Beach Culture Center 400 South Federal Highway -west of HB City Hall -main entrance via S.E. 3rd Street

Confirmed Speakers:

RNC Secretary Sharon Day,

Broward GOP Chairman Chip LaMarca,

Marco Rubio, Candidate for US Senate,

Lt. Col. Allen West, Candidate for

U.S. Congress,

Joyce Kaufman 850 AM Radio Host,

and a special video presentation from

Michael Steele.

National Anthem by National Vocalist Lou Galterio.

--------------------

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-conservative-republicans-gather-b062109,0,962348.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Conservative Republicans meet to plot course

By Anthony Man
June 21, 2009

HALLANDALE BEACH

After losing control of Congress in 2006 and taking a drubbing in the 2008 presidential election, Republican activists have been looking inward.

Moderates and conservatives are struggling over which direction is best for their party.

"The big thing in the Republican Party is everyone wants to know what we stand for and where we are," said Ed Napolitano, organizer of a Conservative Conference for Broward Republians on Tuesday.

Napolitano, a Hallandale Beach contractor, is membership chairman of the Broward Republican Party and president of the Southeast [Broward] Republican Club. The club is the event's sponsor.

President Barack Obama's administration is a powerful motivating force for conservatives.

"Everything this president does influences me. Every day I wake up and am horrified at the things this guy is doing," he said. "I'm completely against I think 90 percent of the things this guy is doing."

Chip LaMarca, chairman of the Broward Republican Party, plans to attend the conference. But his priority is bridging differences and unifying the party.

"You need to come together with a common message that all the different members of the Republican Party have in common. That's how you win elections," he said. "If someone votes with our issues most of the time, that's the person we want to get elected."

Although the Republican divide is getting lots of attention, LaMarca said the Democrats have a similar internal division.

In Congress, liberal Democrats are pulling in one direction and so called Blue Dog Democrats are pulling toward the center. The health care debate is an example; moderate Democrats are balking at some of what their liberal colleagues want.

Broward Democratic Chairman Mitch Ceasar welcomed the conservative gathering. "It'll make my job in election years much easier."

"The conservative conference seems to be at odds with political reality. Broward County, Florida, and the United States has indicated clearly that the populace is moderate. Most folks are somewhere philosophically in the middle. So I welcome and encourage their conservative conference," he said.

Speakers for the event include Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who's the more conservative candidate in the 2010 Republican primary for U.S. Senate against the more moderate Gov. Charlie Crist.

Napolitano said he isn't taking sides in the primary and invited Crist to the event.

And regardless of who wins the Senate primary, Napolitano said he'll support the winner. "As far as I'm concerned any of these Republicans are better than any of these Democrats."

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4550. More on the conservative conference on the Broward Politics blog at SunSentinel.com/browardpolitics

Reader comments at:

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/south-florida-sun-sentinel/TTHD66ICQB7249D7S

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In the near future I may(?) also post some comments about the clueless Beth Reinhard column on Rubio from Saturday's Herald that was one of the worst of the many bad columns

she's penned since I returned to South Florida:

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1105950.html

Where's the insight or originality?

She's truly the personification of

South Florida conventional wisdom.

But by embracing DeMint, Rubio risks moving too far to the right. DeMint

advocates sending illegal immigrants back to their home countries and

making English the official language of the United States, which could

mean that Rubio's Spanish-speaking constituents would not be able to

get ballots and other government documents in their first language.

Having already written a few things

already, I may be compelled to turn it

into a blog post picking that column

of her's apart, as it is full not only of

intellectual laziness, but factual errors,

not the least of which is the comments

about the language of the ballots,

since the DOJ has oversight over

certain states because of the federal

Voting Rights Act, and that includes

Florida.

You know, where we live?

Plus, because South Florida's county

officials have decided that it's good

public policy that ballots also appear

in Spanish (and Creole), and that is

supported by the majority of the

local populace, Reinhard's

argument is a straw man.

A good reporter would already

know that.

That Beth Reinhard doesn't,

or acts like she doesn't, in

order that she can write something

that's pandering to local Hispanic

sensibilities, gives you some true

sense of her profound political

ignorance.

Not that this is exactly Breaking

News to me or most of you.

See also:

Justices Let Stand a Central Provision of Voting Rights Act

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23scotus.html

Frankly, I almost always groan after reading

something that Reinhard's written.

In fact, it was after reading some

real nonsense she'd written about

DWS, while I was having breakfast

at a Denny's, that I decided that I

needed to finally listen to my friends

back in D.C., who'd been urging

me for years to start a blog when

I was still living there, and all my

media and political connections

close at hand, and finally start

one.

Though I'm a moderate Democrat,

I'll try to swing by the event

and hear what's what and snap

some photos.

Informed speculation on the future of "South Florida blogs" on the Miami Herald's website. Hmm-m-m...

Towards the bottom of the Miami Herald's webpage in the space between BLOGS and COLUMNISTS, you'll find the link for South Florida blogs.

Not that most of you who come to this site regularly have been wondering about it but... yes, people have noticed the minimized role of the South Florida blogs on the Miami Herald's website since they tried to persuade certain bloggers to become part of their News Network.

See my earlier post on this topic from April 13, 2010, and at the bottom of this post, see the article the Herald's own Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos felt compelled to write about certain other Herald news partners.

A week ago today... the road not taken with the Miami Herald and some 411 about Beth Reinhard to consider http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-ago-today-road-not-taken-with.html

In fact, to be honest, though I noticed it myself many weeks ago, most of the people who have noticed this change for the worse and mentioned it to me are bloggers who get many more daily hits than I do, and since many of them run ads, unlike me, this change in focus is actually co$ting them, even while it has no real effect on me.

And, lest you forget, I remind you that the Herald went ahead and listed me on their webpage without ever contacting me about it, as I noticed it only after I'd been on the "Communities" list for a bit and someone emailed me about it.

If their emails are any judge of what they're really thinking, it sounds to many South Florida bloggers currently on the Herald's site that the newspaper is just trying to string them along until some time in the near-future, possibly the Holiday season, after they've achieved what they deem to be the optimum geographic coverage they've always wanted.

Then they'll "reluctantly" announce a change of plans and simply eliminate the listed blogs they don't have agreements with.

That's a long way to go to cut your own throat, but it wouldn't be the first time this year the Herald's management has made what I and many other readers paying serious attention believe are critical or fatal errors, since for many months, after a lot of initial promotion on the website, as you can see for yourself from the photo I snapped above around 1 a.m., there's currently no photo, graphic or interesting eye-catching icon to call your attention to the "South Florida blogs" on the Herald website.
Just a link in black - South Florida blogs

Personally, I don't think that's by accident.

Miami Herald
OMBUDSMAN
When partner goes too far, who is responsible?

May 23, 2010

By Edward Schumacher-Matos

It used to be said that the best way to get your opinion heard in a newspaper was to own one, a privilege -- and abuse -- that still reigns at some small community papers.

The Herald has recently entered into online alliances with several of them as an innovative way to aggregate community information across South Florida into one site for readers and advertisers. Some, such as The Key Biscayne Times, maintain high professional standards, but Herald editors are finding themselves entangled with the owners of others whose ethics are challenged by readers.

"I cannot believe that The Miami Herald is allying themselves with the Community Newspapers," wrote Doug and Yvonne Beckman, for example, of a 12-paper chain in South Florida. The Herald has partnerships with the chain's South Miami, Cutler Bay and Pinecrest editions, and the chain's owner, Michael Miller, says he is negotiating to add more.

Yet, the Beckmans (no relation to the late Commissioner Jay Beckman) continue: "There [is] no worse example of yellow journalism I have ever seen. In South Miami that rag is commonly known as the 'Mullet Wrapper.' For years and years the owner has openly interfered with politics in South Miami in the most egregious way."

"Michael Miller is no journalist," wrote another reader, Dean Whitman. "He is not governed by any standard of journalistic ethics with regard to accuracy, objectivity or disclosure of conflicts of interest. His goal is simple, to change the zoning governing height and density of commercial property that he owns on 62nd Avenue in South Miami. This property adjoins a residential neighborhood to the west and Miller wishes to increase the currently zoned height from two to four stories."

NOT HIDING
Miller in an interview acknowledges that he writes about the building, for which he has been suing to change the zoning since 1997, but he said he does so openly in his column, without hiding his self-interest.

Reviewing a number of past issues of the South Miami newspaper, I found that most articles were straightforward, offering information on local events and services. Most of the reader complaints, however, concern Miller's weekly "Around Town" column, and I can see why.

It is a compilation of often unsubstantiated political gossip, much of it harmless, some of it playing favorites.

One column was offensive, making reference to an anonymous death threat letter received by Vice Mayor Valerie Newman, an opponent of Miller's zoning change. The letter said she might end up like Commissioner Jay Beckman, who was allegedly shot to death in 2009 by his teenage son.

Miller wrote: "If you know who just might want to waste their time sending such a note to Valerie, please let the police know as they would love to add this to her package of goodies. And speaking of packages, I hear that Valerie will soon get her day in front of the Ethics Commission on the charges that were initiated by the late Jay Beckman.

"Hmmm . . . One big mouth civic activist told me a few months ago that Jay Beckman had 'turned against us.' Golly, I thought, then the guy winds up dead?"

Whitman noted: "Consider what the response of your readers would be if an esteemed Herald columnist such as Carl Hiaasen, Fred Grimm, Leonard Pitts, or even Glenn Garvin wrote such things. Certainly such things have no place in a legitimate newspaper."

Of course, the column did not appear in The Herald itself. The Herald links to its community newspaper partners from the home page of MiamiHerald.com. But the Herald does highlight on its home page some of the articles from the partners. Two or three Herald articles in turn appear on the partner sites. The Herald pays to help develop the partner sites, and splits advertising revenues with the partners.

The arrangement greatly expands the local news in the Herald's Web edition without having to pay for the reporting, Miller noted. The small allies get to tap into The Herald's large Web traffic. Both sides win economically. Readers are better served by the deep information offered by The Herald's site.

'INVENTIVE'
"The partnership with community sites is one of the most important and inventive things we've started this year," Herald Executive Anders Gyllenhaal told me.

And what of the ethical concerns? Is The Herald tarred when one of its partners commits a transgression? Separately, is The Herald validating those transgressions by featuring or linking to them on its home page?

UNDEFINED LIMITS
"Any new project like this will have its struggles, and we are going to continue to work on how this all fits together," Gyllenhaal said. "The idea is that each of the sites has independence, but that we share the website, the content and also the ad revenues.

"Readers' complaints and objections about coverage are going to come up no matter what the publishing system is. If readers don't like something originated by The Herald, we're the ones who respond. If they don't like something from one of the partners, the partners are the place to go with the concern."

My position is that there is a limit -- undefined, still -- about how much The Herald can accept in its partners. The community papers are valuable for being close to the ground, and in a practical sense can't be held to the same rigorous standards as The Herald. But Miller, at least in his South Miami paper, goes too far. The Herald should rein him in, or cut him off.