Midterms 2014: One Thing Left. VOTE

We're gonna get hit between now and Tuesday Nov. 4th with a ton of negative ads and BS from the pundit echo chambers.

Power through it.

We're gonna get told to vote Republican because "Obamacare Ebola Benghazi Marxism" threatens our God-given right to have the social safety nets cut away while billionaires get their tax breaks as the oil companies pollute our drinking water and the coal companies pollute our air.

Stay focused.

We're still getting sold the lie that Charlie Crist killed jobs in Florida while Rick Scott SAVED US ALL, ignoring how a Republican-fueled deregulatory sh-tstorm crashed the entire global economy - something outside of Crist's control - while Scott's promise to generate 700,000+ jobs couldn't even happen with the economic recovery - well, it COULD have if Scott kept the federal-funded high-speed rail program as well as agreeing to a Medicaid funding program that would have boosted our healthcare jobs - progressing on its own.

Why is anyone even believing a word out of that Medicare Fraud who wouldn't even recognize his own signature during the HCA deposition?

There is one thing left to do here in Florida.  This Tuesday November 4 2014 WE VOTE.

Vote FOR Crist.  Vote FOR Sheldon for Attorney General.  Vote FOR Amendments 1 and 2.  Vote FOR Greenlight Pinellas (alternate rail transit).  Vote FOR every Democrat on the ballot to get the crooked Republicans out of office at the state and congressional levels.  Hell, vote for the Green candidates if there are no Dems to vote, Hell vote for the Libertarian candidates just to kick the goddamn GOP incumbents out.

And for the rest of the nation, to all America... why the F-CK are any of you voting for any of those GOP Senate candidates?!  The modern Republican Party is willfully obstructionist, racist, classist ("kill the poor" has pretty much become the party motto), incompetent, beholden to the uber-rich rip-off artists, and just plain old dangerous.

America: For the LOVE OF GOD Vote Democrat where you can.  If there's no Democrat choice on the ballot and there's a Republican and a Libertarian (or a Green) sitting there, vote the Libertarian (or Green) just to mess with the GOP incumbent.  This current status of having the Republicans controlling the House has got to end.  Having these Republicans ruin their states has got to end.

The midterm votes are just as important as the Presidential election cycles.  I wish to God more voters realize this.  AND THAT THEY VOTE THIS TUESDAY.

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In the Onset of the Election Doldrums... STAY FOCUSED, FLORIDA

Welcome to the moment in the election cycle when it's the tail-end of the years-long marathon and the fatigue and anger are just blending into a mindless fugue state.

All the yelling and shouting about how bad Rick "No Ethics" Scott has been, and how tone-deaf and sadistic and corrupt the Republicans have been just blurs into a repeating loop of outrage where the outrage doesn't feel potent anymore.

This is the point where you gotta push past all that, to stay awake and refresh yourself with the understanding that this election is not over yet, that there's still the big day itself - Tuesday Nov. 4th - where voter turnout is still a key, still a necessity, still a priority for the Democrats and the No-Party-Affiliates to turn out and vote out the crooks like Scott.

If Scott wins, there's the fact he's going to use the next four years to f-ck the state of Florida even further.  THIS MUST NOT PASS, FLORIDA.  For the love of God, we've had 4 years of him killing jobs-worthy programs like the high speed rail, we've had 4 years of him ruining our employment benefits and social safety nets, we've had 4 years of him undercutting our schools and hospitals and child care services, we've had 4 years of him hiding his business dealings among his cronies with secret emails and refusals to answer questions, we've had 4 years of him avoiding our state's needs for Medicaid funding for our elderly and our families...  And Scott is still in this?

To hell with partisan bias, that mindset of voting for one party because you dare not think outside the lies and distortions of the party's reinforcement echo chamber.  LOOK AT THE STATE, people, LOOK AT THE DAMAGE DONE.  We're still one of the worst states for job growth and employment opportunities, we're still one of the worst states in getting our kids educated, we're still a state burdened with high utility costs and homeowner insurance rates, we're still coping with mass foreclosures and banks dragging in honest homeowners with bad paperwork...  Scott and the Republicans won't lift a damn finger about any of that, the Attorney General Bondi won't do a damn thing about any of that, and there's still enough Floridians willing and eager to vote for those frauds?

This is WHY Floridians need to turn out for these last few days of Early Voting (Saturday Nov. 1st is the last Early day).  This is WHY so many of us need to turn out on Tuesday Nov. 4th and vote for Charlie Crist for Governor and George Sheldon for Attorney General.  This is WHY Floridians need to Vote NO on Amendment 3 (regardless of who wins, that court-packing amendment is a disaster).  It'd be nice to have Floridians vote YES on Amendment 1 (to fund our environment cleanups) and YES on Amendment 2 (Medicial Marijuana is a necessity for treating the ill, and it brings us closer to a more just legal system).  Still and all, this is WHY Floridians need to vote for fairness, for a responsive government, for an end to the cycle of Republican obstruction and corruption.

And even if Crist and Sheldon win, there's still a lot of work after the election, because this never ends...

If Crist wins, there's still the fact he's up against a Republican-controlled Florida legislature: because rampant gerrymandering and Democratic cravenness pretty much left 65 percent of the state seats unchallenged.  That has to change for 2016: EVERY SEAT ought to be challenged, every illegal district redrawn to make the seats honestly representative of the residents of this state.

There's work to be done to get referendum amendments offered up in 2016.  We need an amendment to the state constitution protecting our residents' rights to vote (no more of this goddamn 'voter fraud' lie the Republicans keep shilling).  We need an amendment to the state constitution requiring a vote-count percentage of the majority of registered voters before an election can close (to ensure genuine voter turnout of an actual majority: this 24-to-39 percent turnout is KILLING US).  We need an amendment to the state constitution requiring competitive general elections or at least a None Of the Above option on the ballot when neither choice is acceptable.

The marathon goes ever on.  I know it seems tiring, but the other side won't rest and the greedheads and con artists running the show from their SuperPAC shadows threaten everything we should hold dear - our families, our children's futures, our jobs, our health - in our lives.

One more plea: GET THE VOTE OUT.  And for the Love of GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

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Just a Reminder to All Florida Voters During This Early Voting Cycle

If Rick "No Ethics" Scott wins this November, and if prominent Republican governors like Scott "John Doe Investigation" Walker and Chris "BridgeGate" Christie either lose this November or end up indicted... then Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott becomes a front-runner for the GOP nomination for the Presidency in 2016.

Think I'm joking?  If Scott wins, it will be even against all evidence that Scott has run a mismanaged and corrupt governor's office.  It'll be in a state where the enthusiasm for Scott isn't even all that great among the average Republican voters (and where the Far Right are more fixated on just winning at all costs against the dreaded Obama).  He would win in a state that voted for Obama twice and has a 500,000 voter advantage for Democrats over Republicans (if you're thinking "oh well maybe the 3 million NPA voters will all go for Scott," no f-cking way).  And winning in a state where the libertarian candidate (who would traditionally pull away votes from right-leaning candidates) is seemingly getting enough votes (8 percent, maybe?) to prevent anyone from getting a solid 50 percent or more turnout.

If Scott wins it will be due to his getting the wingnut factions of the state to turn out in enough numbers to overwhelm what should be, what has been a vociferous and angry left-centrist faction (the hostility I've seen on the anti-Scott webpages is on par to the hostility I've seen directed at Obama: I've never seen other former governors like Jeb Bush mocked and despised at such a level...).  While Scott's victory may be blamed on the Dems stumbling (oh GOD I hope not) over another centrist candidate, that won't matter to the Far Right.  They'll see a Republican governor who won re-election in a state Obama won.  They'll think he won on "the issues" of tax cuts, refusing Obamacare Medicaid funding, and being a swell example of a Randian "make the poor piss for their food stamps" CEO-turned-elected official.

Personally, hopefully, PRAYING that the voters of Florida are angry enough at a bad governor like Rick "Fraud Up The Wazoo" Scott to turn up in droves to drown out the Far Right voters, that Crist is good enough a campaigner to ensure that turnout for him and for the Democrats as a whole.  I am hopeful that we'll see Rick "WHAT PART OF MEDICARE FRAUD DID YOU KEEP OVERLOOKING REPUBLICANS?" Scott running in shame from the cameras after a decisive electoral loss on the night of November 4th.  But hope is one thing, reality another.  The polling has been up and down too much this year to feel comfortable about Crist winning.  WE NEED VOTER TURNOUT PLEASE GOD.  We need 4.5 million registered Democrats AND enough of the 3 million NPA to get out the vote saying "Go to Hell you Medicare Fraud" kicking Scott out the door.

None of us ought to wake up to seeing Rick Scott trolling Iowa for voters in Winter 2015.  /shudder

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Another Florida Folly

Even with all the general weirdness and madness of a last-minute campaign run for a hotly-contested gubertorial race here in the Sunshine State, we've got this going on as a distraction:

This map is from a coalition operating out of the City of South Miami.  City officials want to split off the southern half of the state so they can form their own, one that would do something about the climate change/flooding doom facing the coastline:

...(Vice Mayor) Harris told the commission that Tallahassee isn't providing South Florida with proper representation or addressing its concerns when it comes to sea-level rising.

"We have to be able to deal directly with this environmental concern and we can’t really get it done in Tallahassee," Harris said. "I don’t care what people think -- it’s not a matter of electing the right people."

The solution isn't that simple, crew.

I think I've argued in other articles about secession that the logistics of such a move - either to become an independent nation or a separate state - would be self-defeating.  While the move to become a state won't be as risky - the federal government is still there providing a foundation - there are still massive issues over revenue sources, property rights, and bureaucratic snafus.

First off, the existing state government has to sign off on this.  Considering South Florida is a major financial, trade, tourist, entertainment metropolis (Miami is one of the major global cities), Tallahassee may be loathe to give up that tax base.  That this coalition wants to grab the next two major metros in Tampa Bay and Orlando - as well as key metros like Ft. Myers/Naples and Lakeland - is going to leave North Florida with just Jacksonville, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Ocala and Gainesville (with J'Ville the only real metro).  Tampa is another major financial hub and seaport... Orlando has Mickey Mouse and global tourism money... South Florida is going to be taking a lot of money off the table and there's no way our current government will give up all of that.

The first thought I had when I saw the makeshift map up there was "why the hell does Miami-Dade want to include all the redneck counties between there and Tampa/Orlando?"  Reading that article helped spell it out: Orlando/Orange County is where Florida manages the water resources that South Florida needs.  But still, the logic of the map eludes me, because there's another thing that the secession types keep overlooking: even with a single state there are cultural and socio-political rivalries that prevent such clean break-ups ever happening.

Florida is not easily divided into two parts.  At best - at the very least - it can be divided into six territories.  If the state of Florida ever fractures it most likely go like this:

• South Florida (Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, the Keys) - Everything from West Palm Beach down to Homestead is one big metro.  If you've ever read the Dredd comics, where they came up with megacities that engulfed entire states, you might get an idea what South Florida looks like: an uninterrupted chain of highways packed with suburbs, slums, business towers, and sports arenas.  The Keys from Largo to West may not be packed, but it's pretty much joined to the hip to Miami-Dade - literally, it's the only way in or out by car - and part of the same tourism appeal and Caribbean culture.  This might include Martin County, maybe even Saint Lucie...
• Southwest Florida (Ft.Myers-Lee, Collier, Charlotte, inner counties south of Polk) - pretty much the last part of Florida to get suburbanized, and one with a lot of political-religious-social cohesion along the coastline.  The inner counties are mostly farmland and some of the least populated counties.  They'd have to choose between Miami-Broward-Palm Beach (an area they share little with), Tampa Bay/Polk County (same issue), or form their own faction (with Martin/St. Lucie/Okechobee Counties) surrounding the key geographic feature of the area, Lake Okechobee.  Taking their chances with Ft. Myers/Naples metro would be the likeliest move...
• Tampa Bay (Pinellas, Tampa-Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, Polk, Pasco, maybe Hernando Counties) - Defined by one of the key growth markets of the early 1980s that made Florida the 4th most populous state within a decade, not as big a financial market as South Florida but still a major trading port anchored by a coherent media market, healthcare industry, and sports franchises.  They'd get Sarasota County because the city of Sarasota is too close to the southern reach of the metro to split off with Port Charlotte-Ft. Myers-Naples...
• Greater Orlando (Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Indian River, Volusia, Lake, maybe Sumter Counties) - the tourist Mecca.  Orlando brings in the people for the amusement parks, Brevard and Volusia brings in the beach tourists eager to visit Daytona and Cocoa Beach.  The South Florida group foolishly cuts off Seminole from Orange, despite the urban reach of Orlando overlapping Seminole as an outlying suburban circle of Purgatory. This faction could conceivably pick up Polk County if they make the right offer (more condos in Haines City!)...
• Northeast Florida/Jacksonville (Jacksonville/Duval, every County east of the Suwanee River) - Where North Florida kinda becomes indistinguishable from the Deep South, and has more in common with Georgia than the urban centers of Central/South Florida.  Jacksonville would be the major seaport and business center, with Gainesville as the cultural/academic center.  There's little else up here except for horse farms and cattle.
• Northwest Florida (Tallahassee, Pensacola, Panama City, sparsely populated Counties west of the Suwanee) - the other half of North Florida, the Panhandle.  Tallahassee is the state capitol and home of two universities (Florida St. the big draw), and then you gotta drive three hours and a time zone to get to Pensacola and that's pretty much it.  There's an airbase where they test UFOs and some decent southern-facing beaches, but that's it.  And if the state goes bonkers and splits up like this, there's a good chance Pensacola might just pack up and merge with Alabama, as that region has more in common with Mobile than Tallahassee...

Even the scenario I've painted here is unlikely: the state could easily fracture into ten parts as much as six, and there's little incentive for the sections to split off (yes, even for South Florida) because the costs of forming a new government - new elected officials, new government buildings, new bureaucracies to manage the graft - are just too damn high.  Mind, South Florida (just Miami-to-Palm Beach alone) might have enough financial muscle to pull it off, but barely.  The other parts of Florida would never afford such a move.

The other point of this proposed split is that South Florida residents are increasingly worried about the global climate change - the global warming in particular - that's due to flood out most of Dade and Broward Counties by 2020.  The costs of pumping out rising seawater from the sewers and streets are getting higher by the month: flooding is not happening during hurricanes anymore, it's happening during peak moon tides.  The response from Tallahassee has been to basically handle it as an ongoing crisis kept as far away from the news cameras as possible: but sooner rather than later the beaches that the state prides on won't even be there anymore, and boating won't be done on the Intercoastal, it will be done on Hwy 441.

But if South Miami/Florida thinks splitting itself off to form its own government will help matters, it won't by much.  They'll still have to cope with the costs of pumping and reinforcing flood walls, for one thing.  They'll have to contend with the fact our federal government - cough, oil-and-coal-paid-for pols with both parties, cough - is ignoring the problems of climate change altogether, something that a new state still won't be able to overcome.  And considering the map that the South Miami group is pushing, the new state government they'll form is going to include a lot of Republican-leaning red counties (Ft. Myers and Naples, Lakeland and Orlando and the infamous I-4 Corridor, the suburban outlets of Tampa and Pinellas) that might counter the more urban-leaning Democratic areas of South Florida itself (not to mention the conservative Cuban population in Dade/Broward mucking up matters).

Just chalk this up as another pipe dream by a local group of concerned citizens horrified that the leadership in Tall Hassle (the nickname for the corrupt capitol of the Xanth fantasy series whose map mimics Florida's) isn't working to answer their concerns.  A better alternative than wasting time and effort to forge a new state would be focusing on CLEANING UP the political mess of the existing state by voting out the corrupt Republican bastards who are ignoring climate change in the first place.

Alright, I'm off to bed.  Just remember kids, here in Florida we've got Early Voting going on, and you all need to GET THE VOTE OUT and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

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Early Voting In Florida 2014, October to November. GET OUT THE VOTE, PEOPLE

Early voting for the General Election (Nov. 4th) begins today here in Florida.  Polk County (the state officially begins Oct. 25th, but some counties can go earlier if they want).

This is it.

This is the election to get Rick "No Ethics" Scott out of office, and to vote Charlie Crist back as a Governor we can trust.

This is the election to vote against every Republican on the ballot to break the corrupt power this party has inflicted on our state the last 15-20 years.

This is the election to vote FOR our state's environment in Amendment One and to vote FOR our state to begin medicinal marijuana in Amendment Two and to vote AGAINST the rigged court-packing disaster in Amendment Three.

Early voting is simple.  It's for people who can't get off work or know they won't be available to vote on Election Day itself.  Voting hours (in Polk County at least) are 9 AM to 6 PM Monday through Saturday (yes! You can vote on Saturday in case you're working Mon-Fri always and forever), and 10 AM to 6 PM on the one Sunday October 26th.  Each county will list locations where they will have polling places that allow anyone from any part of the county to show up to vote (it does not require a specific precinct for you to use).  Last day of Early Voting in Florida will be November 1st (Saturday).

Bring every possible form of ID with you that shows a photo of you with Elvis shaking your hand, your primary address, blood type, birth origin, dog license cat license fish license, anything and everything in case you run into some a-hole trying to deny your RIGHT to vote.

Turnout for voting is key, people.  Small turnouts mean only the extremist candidates and extremist parties win.  The more voters, the more likely the common-ground common-sense votes carry the day.

GET THE VOTE OUT, PEOPLE.

And for the Love of God DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Danke.

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First Rule Of Public Debates: Never Do Anything Stupid or Petty. Or Throw A Hissy Fit.

(UDPATE: hello to all Crooks & Liars visitors!  Just remember these three things: please comment if you want, although I ask you not use 'anonymous' as an ID; please prepare for NaNoWriMo this November; and when you speak of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Horde, speak well.  You can find me Tweeting away on #fantrum to my heart's content... P.S. GET THE VOTE OUT PEOPLE)

So there was supposed to be a Governor's debate here in Florida tonight between Charlie Crist and Rick Scott.

So before the debate begins, there's a bit of confusion going on, and then finally the debate moderators had to note conflict brewing backstage.

So what happens is that Crist has a floor fan he takes everywhere.  Every public speech or gathering he's got a a small floor fan that can fit under a podium or chair and uses it for cooling down.

This is old news.  It's been reported on as recently as this August.  There's a fake Twitter account for Charlie Crist's Fan that's been around since 2009.  (UPDATE: It turns out Crist had one as far back as 2006 when he campaigned for Governor then... the debate promoter ended up providing a fan to the opponent Tom Gallagher...) I'm willing to bet Crist had a fan like that at last week's Hispanic Debate.  Another thing to point out: This is Florida.  Nearly everybody in the state has a floor fan like that, or a ceiling fan, or an oscillating fan.  IT'S FLORIDA: IT GETS HOT DOWN HERE.  Even in October.

But somehow Scott and/or his campaign handlers didn't like Crist having that floor fan around and argued to have it against the rules at this debate for Crist to have it there.

So, the fan is there under Crist's podium and Scott decides to refuse to take the stage.  For seven minutes, Crist's pretty much the only one up there, cracking at least one awkward joke at Scott's expense before Scott finally came out to begin the debate proper.

Why Scott has to throw a hissy fit over a fan makes little or no sense.  It's not like the fan is a f-cking teleprompter or Blackberry giving Crist an edge.  See above: THIS IS FLORIDA.  There are fans everywhere.  As Crist says towards the end of the debate when the fan issue became the question, "What's wrong with being comfortable?"

As Michael Mayo at the Sun-Sentinel notes:

...that Crist, our former governor, looked bad for so desperately clinging to his trusty sweat protector. And Scott, our current governor, looked worse for almost scuttling the debate over something so silly.

It's already made the national media sites.  I won't doubt that the Republican partisan sites will talk up Crist's evilness in bringing an EVIL DEMONIC floor fan onto the stage like that.  But what does it say about Scott's demeanor that he threw the adult equivalent of a child's tantrum?

Look, like it or not that is a state-wide - and tonight of all nights a NATIONAL - stage upon which to present yourself as a cool, capable, level-headed politician.  There are several rules about debating (one them is literally "don't let them see you sweat!"), and one of the top rules is "Never act stupid or petty at the podium."

Look to Rick Perry back in 2011-12 for God's sake.  He came in late to the GOP primaries as a "white knight" figure - a Far Right governor of a Far Right state popular with the GOP wingnuts - only to blow it on the debate stage when he couldn't remember the three federal agencies he'd close down as President.  The stupidity was so painful that moment that his fellow debaters jumped in to remind him.

In terms of pettiness, bad debate performances turn on how one of the debaters would get stuck on some minor detail or annoyance and flare it up into a useless argument.  This is where Scott screwed up.  Where Crist came out to the stage to begin the debate, Scott refused.  A smart debater would have come out, pointed out the rule, asked Crist directly to work that debate without the fan, shift the burden completely onto Crist, and proceed with the event.  Instead, Scott came across acting like a spoiled child who wasn't getting his way and was going to take his toys and go home.

So who had the Oops Moment here?  Crist may have brought out a floor fan against Scott's wishes but he was the one who came out prepared to actually debate.  Scott was fighting an argument over a floor fan that Crist has used almost his entire political career with no scandal, and was "standing up" for his argument by throwing a tantrum.  Over a fan.  IN FLORIDA.

Our state's entire existence depended on air conditioning, and Scott is throwing a hissy fit over a fan.  How many Floridians are sitting at home watching this debate thinking "why the hell doesn't Scott have a floor fan?"

If our governor's election turns entirely on how the average Floridian thinks about the use of floor fans during a debate, AND STILL VOTES FOR RICK "NO COOL" SCOTT, we deserve to sink into the rising climate change waters.

Going to bed now.  When I wake up tomorrow morning I wanna see at least 60 percent of my fellow Floridians claiming they're fans of Charlie Crist.

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Florida 2014 Election: Sample Ballots and Reminder (UPDATE)

Just got mine in the mail from the County Elections office.  (UPDATE) If you need a Sample Ballot for your county, PLEASE visit the state map listing the county Elections' offices.  Each site should have a ballot on display for you to view.

Some of you may be voting by mail.  Some of you should plan ahead and vote during the EARLY VOTING cycle between October 20th to November 1st.  Some may be traditionalists and wait until the Day itself, first Tuesday in November which is November 4th.

The key thing is to VOTE.  GET THE VOTE OUT FLORIDA!  I don't wanna see 39 percent or 42 percent turnout this midterms.  I wanna see 76 percent!  I WANNA SEE 90 PERCENT TURNOUT PEOPLE.  Your vote, your voice, your POWER.  VOTE DAMMIT.

But, you might say to the computer screen, I don't know what to vote on!

Well, then, glad you asked, lemme help you out here.  Two basic rules:
1) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN and
2) FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE FOR THAT DAMN CROOK RICK SCOTT.

That doesn't help us much, Mr. Blogger you say can you speel it out for us?

Sigh.  Fine.  Let's go through the ballot topics.  Federal first:

1) There is no Senate seat contested (per the 2/3 cycle), so wait until 2016 to vote Marco Rubio out.
2) Any Congressional district you are in that has a Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate, VOTE DEMOCRAT.  Any district you are in that has a Republican candidate and a Libertarian candidate, vote for a valid Write-In Candidate.  Any district where there's a Republican and a No-Party-Affiliate candidate only, vote for the NPA (unless you know the NPA personally as an -sshole, in which case sue the state for emotional damages).  Any district where there's a Republican candidate unchallenged, curse the Old Gods and The New and volunteer to campaign next election on the ballot because dammit you gotta vote that crooked Bent-For-Destruction GOP out of power.

If you're in District 9, vote Alan Grayson.  District 10, vote Alan Cohn.  District 17, vote Will Bronson.  District 3, vote Marihelen Wheeler.  District 12... District 12... BILIRAKIS IS RUNNING UNOPPOSED?!?!  DAMMIT DEMOCRATS, YOU COWARDS.  Whadda ya gonna do, let Bilirakis sit there in office until he retires to let his son inherit the seat the same way Gus inherited it from Mike?!  30-plus years of the same family running a little fiefdom in North Pinellas/West Pasco?!  DAMMIT.

Anyway, any seat where there's a Democrat and a Republican, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE DEMOCRAT.  Let Gus represent the GOP all on his loneso... whadda ya mean there's other unchallenged Republican seats?!  /headdesk

Grrrr.

Next up, the Governor and state official races:

1) VOTE CHARLIE CRIST for governor.  He did a decent job as governor before (made efforts to protect the environment, played fair with the electorate, vetoed a bad and unpopular education bill), not a partisan hack like Scott nor a pocket-lining greedhead like Scott.
2) For Attorney General, vote George Sheldon.  Bondi has been a disaster as AG for Florida: pursuing bad anti-gay and anti-voter court rulings, failing to go after utilities for unfair price hikes, and refusing to pursue many of the conflicts-of-interest cases floating around our state government.  She's been Scott's partner in crime than representing the people's interests.  Sheldon can and should go after the utilities above anything else and will protect the rights of voters and the citizenry over the needs of any partisan in office.
3) For Chief Financial Officer... aaaaaaaauuugggggghhhhhh.  There's a Republican and a Democrat on the ballot, but the papers are complaining about the Democratic Will Rankin's lackluster campaigning and are noting that the Republican Jeff Atwater has actually done an honest job of things in Tallahassee.  Don't do this to me, Florida Dems...
4) For Agricultural Commissioner (which also covers consumer services for some reason)... dammit.  Democrats have another lackluster guy in Thad Hamilton running against Republican Adam Putnam who again has a solid record per the local papers.  Thing is... dammit dammit dammit, cannot vote for ANY Republican at any level of office, it just encourages the party wingnuts to be worse...  On the bright side, the Agriculture slot has a Write-In ballot space.  Find a viable write-in candidate and file a protest vote!

Now for the State legislative offices, both Senate and House:
1) What part of FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN have you not noticed yet?
2) For the Senate seats, there are almost no challenged seats, so there's few if any choices.  Of the 20 seats for election, there are only 5 challenges, meaning two Democrats and 13 Republicans are returning to Tall Hassle unopposed (!).  If there are ANY of those seats with a Write-In ballot choice, I recommend you fill in that Write-In as a protest vote against this ridiculous incumbency.
3) For the House seats, again there are few (less than 30 percent of them) if any challenged seats.  Again this is an insult to the voters that our state-level parties (especially the Democrats) are COWARDS when it comes to forcing incumbents to answer for their legislative sins.  Again, if there are ANY seats with a Write-In ballot choice, fill in the Write-In ballot as a protest vote and slap some fear into both parties.

For the Judicial Retention votes:

Remember last election, Rick "No Ethics" Scott and his buddies tried to actively vote out judges in order to fill those vacancies with his pro-Scott cronies.  It was the first time ever there was a partisan effort against the judges.  As long as Scott is in office, VOTE TO KEEP THE JUDGES (It helps that none of them up for vote have been embarrassments or crooked on the bench).

For the State Amendments on the ballot:

As I wrote earlier, we're down to three so it keeps it short and simple.
VOTE YES ON 1 to protect our wetlands and environment and water supply.
VOTE YES ON 2 to allow for medicinal marijuana and provide an end to the disastrous War on Drugs.
VOTE NO ON 3 to stop Rick Scott from preemptively packing the state courts with his cronies.

For any county-level or city-level tax referendums (referenda? damn my Latin which plural form fits...):

Vote YES on any tax hike program because F-CK YOU Grover Norquist.  Granted, this is more a knee-jerk reaction to the tax-cutting frauds dominating our discourse, but dammit too many of our public services at the county level are getting slashed and burnt here.  Okay, I'll relent: if the tax hike in question is a blatant attempt at lining someone's (a rich corporation) pockets, then don't vote for it.  But if it's for needed social services, please vote YES.

I think there's a rail funding program for Pinellas County on the ballot.  DEFINITELY VOTE YES on Greenlight, Pinellas County: our metro areas need alternative transit options.

Also, for the Pasco County Mosquito Control Board?   Seat Two has four candidates and I don't know a single one of 'em.  You're gonna have to vote for who you know, Pasco County.  (Update 10/25/14: there have been two people commenting that they found my article trying to figure out who to vote to be their Mosquito Hunter Expert, upset I didn't make a recommendation.  So I did some research to dig up any kind of newspaper list, and so far the Tampa Bay Times Recommends list... doesn't make one either!  Sorry, folks, you're gonna have to ask around about which of the four - Matthew "Skeeter" (?) Abbott, Bill Law, Niko Tzoumas, or Jerry Wells - to pick...)

Okay, voters reading this blog, that should help you make your informed decisions on Election Day/Early Voting/Mail-in Balloting.

GO VOTE.  Tell your friends to vote.  Tell your family to vote.  Tell your co-workers to vote.  If your co-workers say they can't vote during the workday, encourage your co-workers to vote on the weekend (including a Sunday October 26th!) during the Early Voting period.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

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October Notes from Florida 2014

It's a busy month but let's make a few things clear:

1) Here in Florida this is a huge election.  We've got three key state amendments to vote on: voting FOR Amendment One to protect our ecosystems, voting FOR Amendment Two to legalize medical marijuana, voting AGAINST Amendment Three to stop governors from packing the state courts even years before there's any vacancies.

2) We've also got key elections in the state executive branch, especially Attorney General (vote FOR George Sheldon) and Governor (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE FOR CHARLIE CRIST!  Get Rick "No Ethics" Scott out of there!)

3) We need massive voter turnout in EVERY part of the state to overcome the hideous distortions of gerrymandering that has rigged our electoral system to favor the cheaters.

4) I just want to repeat this: GET RICK "MEDICARE FRAUD" SCOTT OUT OF THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE BEFORE HE CAUSES MORE DAMAGE.

5) That all said, the deadline to register to vote in Florida is October 6th, this Tuesday.  If you have changed your address since you last registered, or you need to make sure you are registered, get a form filled out - most county and city offices such as your local library should have forms - and sent it before this Tuesday!  It is vital and important we get as many people registered as possible.

6) And then it is VERY VITAL AND IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO VOTE.

We WILL have Early Election Balloting available.  Early voting should run from October 20th to November 1st.  AND voting is available on Saturdays and Sunday of those weeks.  Early voting can happen in any designated place in your residing county.

The set Election Day is always the first Tuesday of November: this year it's November 4th.  Voting starts at 7:00 AM in Florida and are set to close at 7:00 PM (FACT: if you are in line to vote before 7:00 PM occurs, the precinct must remain open to allow you the right to vote.  PLEASE STAY IN LINE WHEN YOU GET THERE).  For the general election, you MUST go to the exact precinct where you live (your Voter ID card MUST give you the street address where that precinct is).

If you know you are going to be out of town during the Early election and General election days, you CAN sign up for a mail-in Absentee ballot.  Follow the Supervisor of Elections link to your county office to register for the form.  It's gotta be done before October 6th.

The ballot will likely be multiple pages.  Polk County's Sample Ballot is 2 pages.

Every election counts.  Every vote matters.  If you have questions about the candidates running for each office, the local newspapers - Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Trib, Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, (Jacksonville) Times-Union, so many others - will have website information on each, and the League of Women Voters has a guide for the statewide offices and candidates.

If you want a general rule of thumb to go by: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.  The party as a whole has been in charge of this state for 15-20 years, and they have made a goddamn mess of things.

And let's get the DAMN VOTE OUT.  I am sick of seeing a state with 11.5 million registered voters show up with a measly 4-5 million (under 50 percent! damn us all!).

And to hell with the polling.  One week it's one thing, next week it's another.  JUST VOTE FOR CRIST, PEOPLE.  RICK SCOTT IS A CROOK.

Keep in touch.  I will have more to rage on as the month progresses.

Just remember, YOUR VOTE IS YOUR POWER.

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Walking Into September With a Lot On My Mind

September starts tomorrow.

We should already be working on getting Charlie Crist getting the votes to win the governor's race this November.

We should be, here in Florida and across the nation, working to get everyone voting this November.  No more of these "below-50-percent" turnouts, people.  I'm sick of it, and you should be too.  The low turnouts are why the wrong candidates keep winning...  We need the best candidates winning (psst, vote for Charlie Crist for Governor)!  And we can ensure that by getting more, not fewer, voters turning out... because fewer voters means only the single-issue wingnuts are voting, while more voters means there are more issue-oriented moderate voters, whom I trust are sane enough to know to vote for an experienced elected official with a decent track record of respecting the state over an unethical corrupt business owner who's only in office to service his own needs.

Also, vote for Marihelen Wheeler for the Florida 3rd District (because the Republican incumbent in that district wanted to crash our economy during the Long October)!  And vote for Michael McKenna for the Florida 10th District (because the 10th District is one of the two gerrymandered districts the GOP crafted to favor their own, and dammit that earns them a nice F-U for their BS maneuver)!

In fact, just kinda DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN at all this 2014 midterms, people.  The Republican Party wants to kill all government, which is really killing the whole nation.  So kick the Republicans out of office, since they don't respect their jobs and they sure as hell don't respect us the voters.

Get to work this September, voters.

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Gerrymander And The Contempt of the Florida Legislature

Previously on Gerrymandering Florida, the judge that ruled against the state legislature's blatant partisan district-making for the federal congressional seats ordered that legislature to hold a special session and redraw the affected districts to adhere to the state's Fair Districts amendments.  Said maps were being redrawn for use this year's midterms, which could mean a delay in the affected districts (and perhaps the whole state's primary and general elections).

There wasn't much expected out of this court order, though.  Personally, I had little hope that the state legislature - ruled by Republicans - would play by the rules and draw districts that were compact and based not on registered voters/ethnic makeup but on population density.  After all, these were the same jokers who drew the 5th Congressional District as this long snake-like gerrymander in the first place: they wanted to shove as many Democrats into that one district so they could craft six surrounding districts to favor Republicans.

So, to no surprise at all, the legislature presented to the judge their revised district maps.  Which is: they didn't change much of anything! (via Talking Points Memo)

...But the new maps look quite like the old ones, especially the boundaries of the snakelike District 5, one of the most gerrymandered seats in the country. In his ruling earlier this summer, Federal Judge Terry P. Lewis said District 5 “does not follow traditional political boundaries” and “connects two far flung urban populations” without legal justification. His opinion chided lawmakers, saying districts containing “finger-like extensions, narrow and bizarrely shaped tentacles, and hook like shapes…are constitutionally suspect and often indicative of racial and partisan gerrymandering...”

The revised districts still carve out a snaking thin 5th District between Jacksonville, half of Gainesville (the eastern half where most Blacks and college students live) down to the northern half of the Orlando metro.  The new map does nothing about those "finger-like extensions" that exist among most of the districts, clear efforts by the party in charge to carve out favorable "safe" districts rather than allow communities, cities and counties to speak with one unified voice.

To which I say: can Judge Lewis hold the entire Republican contingency sitting in the Florida legislature with contempt of court?  At least that redistricting committee?

The powers-that-be in the state legislature were given instructions, and a clear understanding from the judge that he was expecting a cleaner, rule-abiding map.  They refused: they intentionally made minor tweaks and are basically daring Lewis to accept what they're offering.

Judge Lewis shouldn't accept it.  He should hold them accountable: for violating the state constitution, for violating their oath of office, for displaying this level of open contempt for his court rulings.

If he's empowered to do so, Lewis should get an independent map-maker on this, get another redistricting map drawn up for Florida's congressional districts and set that map for use.  If not, if he's forced to require the state legislature to make the redistricting map, then he ought to make certain those bastards play by the rules and make a congressional district map that's compact, centered out evenly to our population centers, and unbiased to party alignment.

The state legislature's argument that they have to make the 5th District a "minority" district to abide by the Voting Rights Act requirements for minority representation doesn't make sense when you consider most urban communities are minority, and already effective areas to create such districts in the first place.  The bloggers over at Addicting Info went and did their own redistricting maps, and found that by following the compactness rule and population density without any other bias they could create six congressional districts with heavy minority (Black and/or Hispanic) voting blocs.  We still end up with evenly mapped out districts, not ones that are snaking over six different counties and splitting cities and communities.

This is what Addicting Info's compact and fair districts map looks like.  See anything?  Yeah.  NO GERRYMANDERS.

What the Republicans in the Lege are trying to do is carve out controlled, party-friendly districts, which violates the core values of our electoral process.  It also violates the whole idea behind the Fair District Amendments to make compact, community-focused districts.

The state legislature is pretty much breaking the law right now.

That's the sort of thing that's supposed to involve criminal charges, jail time, fines, something, ANYTHING to uphold the laws of the land.

To Judge Lewis, I urge you to hold the irresponsible leadership of the state Republican-controlled legislature in contempt of your court.

And I urge voters, in spite of our gerrymandered districts, to get up and GET OUT THE DAMN VOTE and to vote the Republicans OUT OF THE STATE LEGISLATURE.  Just DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN, people.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...

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Can The Elephant Ever Thread The Eye of the Needle?

(Update: The GOP House is attempting to get something resolved, but it's doubtful the bill - something that would nuke DACA with extreme prejudice -would survive its trip to the Senate, let alone getting to Obama's Oval Office where it'll get vetoed.)
I've mentioned before how this Republican-led House in the U.S. Congress may be one of the most incompetent ever, but today's failure to even get a vote out on an emergency border bill takes the prize (via Washington Monthly):

Despite some nativist tweaks aimed at getting conservatives on board, the House GOP leadership (operating for the first time with Kevin McCarthy instead of Eric Cantor holding the whip) had to pull its much trumpeted border bill this afternoon, apparently abandoning the whole effort while Members head off on their long August recess...

This article quickly links to Talking Points Memo for more:

...Immigration-weary conservatives said the $659 million supplemental, and the subsequent measure to end the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, didn't go far enough in rebuking the president's actions.

It was a remarkable defeat for the new GOP leadership team on the day that Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) stepped down as majority leader.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced the decision in a joint statement with his new leadership team, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)...

Why the hair-pulling?

Because of three things of direct concern: 1) there is a major crisis at the moment with an influx of children immigrants flooding across the US-Mexico border, a lot of them fleeing an increase in violence and corruption in places like Honduras and Guatemala, 2) the prolonged failure by Republican Party leadership to address any form of immigration reform was starting to show, and 3) the Republicans were poised to use this bill to force draconian cuts to Obama's planned efforts of immigration reform (he had asked for 3.7 billion in comprehensive funding to which the House slashed it down to barely 659 million for border security only, and the Far Right in the House were aiming to slash at other programs like DACA), positioning themselves to look good to their base while making Obama choke on the sh-t sandwich they were going to serve him.  Now they can't even serve him a sh-t sandwich (even with them trying to blame this all on Obama anyway).

Another problem?  The one thing this House did vote for this final week was a resolution granting Speaker Boehner the power to file a lawsuit against Obama's "unlawful" abuse of Executive Orders.  Like I said before, more a political stunt to appease their base, but now this lawsuit creates a paradox.  Because House Republicans can't pass the legislation needed to get things done, they're forcing Obama into the position of issuing Executive Orders to cover the gaps that failure of legislating is creating.  Per the Washington Post:

...When Obama takes some kind of executive action to address the broader immigration problem, Republican complaints that he’s being tyrannical will be undermined by the GOP’s abysmal failure to offer an alternative. If they had passed a border bill he vetoed, or one that died in the Senate, they could claim they tried to solve the problem. But now all they’ve got to show for the end of the session is a lawsuit — one that will probably offer their own right wing nothing but frustration and disappointment, and will validate everything Obama is saying about them.

This is the best that the Republicans in the House could do this summer?

Some of the other things worth mentioning: we were promised an exclusive special committee getting into the bottom of Benghazi, yet I can't recall a single news report about them since May (turns out they're scheduled to hold hearings this September); Congress has been having problems funding bills for our nation's transportation infrastructure; the only thing that this Congress seems able to pass is a major reform and funding package for the Veterans Affairs department that was facing serious breakdowns in service and management... and that's pretty much because the failures at the VA were so great and so prolonged that both parties had to respond quickly to fix it.

We're discussing one of the least productive Congressional sessions in recent memory (barely doing any better than the previous one of 2011-13, which wasn't all that busy anyway).  Like it or not, we as a nation need a functioning Congress to uphold the legislative duties that keep our government working.  When it doesn't work, very little else can...

There is a possibility that the House will delay their planned August recess - for a few days at least - in order to pass something of a border security bill, and avoid the outright embarrassment of heading off to their fundraiser parties at country clubs.  But given the dysfunction of this party - their obsession to embarrass Obama at all hazards, their failure to keep their more extremist factions in check - I doubt the House Republicans will get anything done before they blame their failures on Obama and move on.

This is not a political party geared towards passing any decent legislation.

Reason #4793178 you shouldn't vote Republican.

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Killing the Florida Gerrymander: Court Ruling Is In

It happened last night, didn't see the news in the Tampa Bay Times until later today:

A judge threw out Florida's congressional map late Thursday, ruling that the Legislature allowed for a "secret, organized campaign" by partisan operatives to subvert the redistricting process in violation of the state Constitution.

In a 41-page ruling, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis said that two of the state's 27 districts are invalid and must be redrawn, along with any other districts affected by them, to bring the map into compliance with the state's new Fair District amendments.

The case, brought by a coalition led by the League of Women Voters, is expected to be appealed and ultimately decided by the Florida Supreme Court...

Lewis rejected challenges to districts in South Florida and Tampa Bay, but said that District 5, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, and District 10, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Webster of Winter Park "will need to be redrawn, as will any other districts affected thereby."

The judge agreed with the coalition's prime argument: that Republican legislators and staffers collaborated with political consultants to create "a shadow redistricting process" that protected incumbents and the GOP...

While the judge is only ruling on two districts needing to be re-drawn, the effect on the connecting districts will force them to be reshaped to conform to the rules.  I mean, take a look at the 5th District that got struck down:

via the Washington Post 

It goes through five counties, two of them - Duval and Orange - densely populated counties - due to being urban centers Jacksonville (Duval) and Orlando (Orange) - that could have easily formed their own district if said districts were designed by population density alone.  It carves Alachua County in two, splits Putnam County down the middle, and wiggles down along the non-retirement-community part of Lake.  In fact, I see a tiny little foot (that dangly thing sticking out at the bottom half) that is going into a sixth county - Seminole - taking off a northern chunk of a geographically small - but packed - county.  Why the hell is that?

Well, because this district basically takes the minority populations of two urban centers - Jacksonville and Orlando - to shove both into one district so that the surrounding districts will be more White (and in some districts more elderly).  By putting the urban (read: leans Democrat) into one district, the GOP state leaders can carve out friendly (read: leans Republican) out of six districts.

And that is exactly what the judge found: there was evidence that the Republicans in the state legislature along with their allies on the outside consulting intentionally carved the districts to favor their own party.  Consider the 10th District, the other one Judge Lewis ordered to be redrawn (and which is connected to the 5th, highlighting how that district was intentionally skewed), per the ThinkProgress website:

...Though more compact in shape than a purple worm, District 10 has what Judge Lewis describes as “an odd-shaped appendage which wraps under and around District 5, running between District 5 and 9.” As Lewis notes, Districts 5, 7, 9 and 10 are shaped the way they are in part because a Republican political consultant suggested that they be redrawn in a way that transformed them “from being four Democratic performing or leaning seats in early maps . . . to two Democratic and two Republican performing seats in the enacted map.” So Republicans likely picked up two congressional seats because of the odd design of these districts.

Indeed, Lewis discusses significant evidence that Republican lawmakers colluded with Republican operatives regarding the maps. Early in the process, Republican legislative leaders met with a group of GOP political operatives and a top Republican lawyer to discuss redistricting. The deputy chief of staff to Florida’s then-house speaker shared draft maps with a particular Republican consultant at least 24 times. In some cases, he provided this GOP consultant “with draft maps that were never released to the public.”

For all the show-boating the state legislature did with the redistricting efforts in 2012 - I personally attended a mass presentation in east Pasco County, but didn't get a chance to ask a question as I'd hoped due to the huge volume of people who showed up - they never intended for this to be an open or transparent process.  The court hearings revealed a series of secret meetings, destroyed records, reluctant testifiers.  Back to the Tampa Bay Times report:

...Lewis also noted that legislative leaders and the political operatives destroyed almost all of their emails and other documents related to redistricting and concluded that the circumstantial evidence surrounding all of those developments, and the evidence that the consultants attempted to influence the same districts he has found problematic, proved the GOP operatives were trying to influence the process.

"There is no legal duty on the part of the Legislature to preserve these records, but you have to wonder why they didn't,'' he wrote. "Litigation over their plans was 'a moral certainty' as their lawyers put it earlier in the case, and intent would be a key issue in any challenge."

You don't have to wonder: you have to accept the evidence (or lack of it considering how most of it got lost/destroyed).  The people in power - a Republican-controlled legislature - wanted to create a permanent Republican majority by intentionally carving out gerrymandered "safe" districts that proportionally favored Republicans over Democrats nearly 60-40.  And that was just at the federal Congressional level.  It's horrifying that this court case didn't seem to look at the damage done with the state Senate and state House seats.

I doubt we'll see the necessary fixes to the districts in time for the 2014 midterms.  And the court case is bound to drag up to the appellate system well into 2016, unless the plaintiffs get the courts to expedite the matter to get it fixed by that election cycle.  But this is a huge step: it is on record now.  Florida's districts are gerrymandered.  And those gerrymanders gotta go.

Better yet: the Republican crooks who carved out those illegal gerrymanders gotta go as well.  GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, DEMOCRATS (AND INDEPENDENTS).

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Observations of the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby Ruling

Well, the damage is done for another Supreme Court calendar year, finishing up with a ruling on corporations refusing to provide healthcare coverage to employees with regards to birth control medication and devices...  while I'm not a legal scholar, I've been a witness to history and American politics long enough to understand a few things:

1) The ruling clearly puts the religious beliefs of an owner over that of the employees: rather than try to find a spot between which the owner's beliefs won't conflict with the employees, the Court took a side... which hurts more people (workers and their families) more than it would have hurt the owners.

2) Justice Alito's contention that the ruling specifically affects birth control makes it clear the decision was about abortion and not religious liberty (despite what the fundamentalists think, those issues ARE separate).  The ruling didn't bring into consideration other religious arguments against various medical treatments - for example, some churches object to blood transfusions and others might object to psychiatric meds - which means the Justices were only concerned for the one that mattered to them: the religious argument against abortion.  It didn't help that all five Justices ruling FOR Hobby Lobby are practicing Catholics, whose church decrees that birth control is equal to abortion (there's a sixth Justice who is Catholic, but Sotomayor is female, which brings us to the next point).

3) The ruling was passed due to five Justices all of whom - Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Kennedy, and Thomas - were not only Catholics but also all male.  The sixth male Breyer sided with the dissent, which was where the three sitting female Justices all argued against the ruling.

3a) Not to mention that the five Justices in favor are all Republican party appointees, with the four dissenters all Democratic.

If you were a Republican operative working on any outreach programs to young unmarried women (and even married women) who are in dire need of healthcare coverage to pay for medications like birth control (some of the meds are useful outside of birth control, such as reducing risks of ovarian cysts/cancer), all of a sudden you're going to find it VERY hard to find any women with any fondness for the GOP.  The Republicans were already having problems getting young women to support the party, now it's going to get worse...

4) While the Far Right and Pro-Fetus crowd may be celebrating the ruling, it needs to be said it is easier to rally your voters around a grievance than anything else.  Meaning the motivation is now all on the Democratic side of the midterms this year.

Now the Republicans will crow that this ruling hurts dreaded ObamaCare, and that may get the Far Right base out and voting this November.  But now the Democrats have motivation by pointing out to women voters that they need to get out the vote to keep Democrats in control of the Senate this 2014: It's the Senate that approves Supreme Court Justices after all, and the sitting Justices aren't getting any younger.  If Ginsberg - eldest of the left-leaning Justices - dies or retires with a GOP-held Senate (who will press for a Far Right candidate no matter what even with Obama making the nominations), that's a vulnerable vacancy that could secure a solid block for conservative rulings for a long time.  Or if any other conservative Justices dies or retires while the Democrats control the Senate with Obama making the nominations, that could well shift the balance of power in the Court away from the current 5-vote conservative side.

Either way, if women feel threatened by a conservative Supreme Court - and I'm willing to argue a lot of them will be, not just over abortion and access to healthcare but also employment and salary equality, access to education, access to voting (!) - they have a lot of motivation now to vote Democratic for Senate seats this 2014... and to vote Democratic for the Presidency (hi, Hillary!) in 2016.

This is still the key point: despite whatever the Supreme Court rules, it's still up to voters to put into political power in the White House and the Senate (as well as the House in Congress) those elected leaders who will pass the laws and enforce the laws that the Supreme Court rules upon.  It's up to the President and the Senate to put Justices onto the Court bench when the time comes.  It's up to the people - us - to vote the right people into office who will make damn sure the Court is made up of Justices who will follow the law rather than their own biases.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT WOMEN, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.

P.S. point 5) This is still a slippery slope where "religious liberty" is going to get pursued in other fields of debate, such as education, social services, what have you.  Relying on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to make this ruling is going to open up the possibility that questionable law can be argued for other ways the religious extremists can get around the restrictions and limits based on the Separation of Church and State.  This can get scary.

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Meanwhile in Florida, Another Gripe About Gerrymanders

(update: hello to the readers visiting via Crooks and Liars.)
I mentioned on my last post I had several things worth blogging, and this was one: a follow-up of sorts from the Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano about the gerrymander trial and a realization he made about how screwed up our electioneering is:

...Nearly one-third of the candidates for 140 Senate and House seats are running unopposed. You think that sounds bad? Pffft, that just scratches the surface.

Dozens of other races offer only the appearance of competition with write-in, third-party and no-party affiliated candidates on board. No disrespect intended to those folks, but it has been decades since anyone booked passage to Tallahassee via that route.

All of which brings us to the bottom line:

There are a grand total of 57 races out of 140 that include both a Republican and a Democrat. Fifty-stinking-seven!

That means nearly 60 percent of the legislative races in November are slam dunks. And only a handful of the other 40 percent will actually turn out to be competitive.

In other words, your American Idol vote will probably carry more weight...

This is what gerrymandering does in the pursuit of creating "safe" districts. Enough of these districts are so skewed to favor one party that the opposing major party doesn't even want to waste the resources to challenge the incumbent that's usually sitting in said district.

More from Romano:

The maps are drawn to have predetermined outcomes in elections. Republicans have given themselves enough safe districts to ensure they will remain in power, and they have given Democrats just enough safe districts to keep them from complaining.

So who loses?

You.

Instead of getting multiple choices of candidates who have a legitimate chance to win, you are stuck with take-it-or-leave-it elections.

The bigger problem is you have already made it clear you were tired of this sham. Florida voters overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments that forbid the Legislature from just this kind of district stacking when maps were redrawn for 2012.

And yet the problem is only getting worse.

In 2010, the last election under the old maps, 51.7 percent of the races failed to field both a Republican and a Democrat. In 2012, the first year of new maps, that percentage rose to 54.3. Right now, barring anyone dropping out, it's 59.2 percent.

So that means the legislative leaders who were specifically instructed to redraw maps to make them more competitive may have actually made them more lopsided.

Which is easy to believe if you listened to the testimony of deleted emails, consultants being invited to the table and a phantom map falsely submitted under a student's name...

Just on those points alone, the judge overseeing this case ought to dump the GOP's redistricting maps (and for good measure hold each of the con artists responsible for it for contempt).

Romano notes how the general electorate has grown disgusted by the gerrymandering, about how state amendments forcing better redistricting were passed in popular referendum, but that's not the only emotion these gerrymandered maps create.

These maps also create disillusionment and disinterest.  When voters tend to get confronted with elections that have no consequences or value, when voters are pretty much told they have no choices for them to make, they tune out and refuse to show up.  Voter turnout for these mid-term elections - where nothing is at stake in 60 percent of the districts - is hideous, barely topping out over 39 percent and sometimes barely getting over a quarter of all registered voters (when real competitive races take place like the Presidential ones, voter turnout at least breaks over the 55-60 percent mark).

At best 39 percent turnout, people.  That's not a majority of registered voters.  That's not enough residents in this state electing people to office who have the power to dictate business regulations, quality of schools, quality of the local roads and bridges, our environment, any kind of local or national jobs bills that could stimulate the local/national economy... and so on.

We're not ruled by majority vote, we're ruled by the extremists who are the only ones who care enough to vote no matter what.  And those extremists - especially the ones on the Republican side - don't care if government works or not, they just want their special interests protected at all hazards...

This is what gerrymandering creates: lack of honest-to-God representation of the majority's best interests.  It creates disgust in the entire political process.

Gerrymandering has to go if we have any hope of making government at the local, state, and federal levels work again.

That judge better rule against these maps and make certain honest, competitive maps get installed right quick.

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Executive's Order, Speaker's Chaos

I had about five other things I wanted to write about - after long weeks of having little to discuss that could be resolved in a simple, "what the hell?" retort - but I spotted this halfway through the day and felt compelled to lead off with this.

Speaker John Boehner is seriously reviewing his options on pursuing a lawsuit against Barack Obama's use of Executive Orders.  To wit (via the Washington Post):

Reports today indicate that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is planning a lawsuit over Barack Obama's use of executive orders. These orders have long been a focal point of right-wing anger, particularly since January of this year when Obama announced he'd be using more of them to bypass a gridlocked and dysfunctional Congress.

After the immediate round of laughing my ass off, I had to consider the actual seriousness of what Boehner's hoping to accomplish.

With regards to EOs (abbrev. Executive Order, natch), there has been a long history of Presidents issuing such things ever since the first one under the Constitution, George Washington himself.  The argument for them stems from the interpretation of Article II, Section 1 Clause 1 that grants Presidents the power to "faithfully execute the laws": in order to execute - or perform duties - under such laws the President has to establish the who, how, where and when those laws have to be enforced (the "why" of the laws fall under judicial review set by the Supreme Court).  The only noticeable time Executive Orders were even considered by SCOTUS, it was when they overturned an EO issued by Truman because it "attempted to make law" rather than enforce one.

Ever since that, Presidents made the effort to relate their EOs to congressional laws.  Legal scholars, however, still consider Executive Orders in a kind of gray zone where their actual constitutionality might or might not exist.  It's in the gray zone that Boehner wants to attack Obama's efforts to use EOs this year to work around GOP Congressional obstruction.

Thing is, Boehner's case is weak to begin with.  Obama's case history of issuing EOs demonstrate he's not the great offender Boehner and the Far Right make him out to be:

That Post chart tells the facts: compared to modern Presidents, Obama's issued the fewest EOs in decades.  For the most part of the 19th Century, you'll note the lack of executive activity... up until Teddy Roosevelt, that bundle of energy who defined the modern Presidency with his progressive activism.  It calmed down by the time of Eisenhower, and even then the EO average hadn't been reached since the days of Jimmy Carter.

And while the modern conservative wingnut faction of the GOP are screaming about Obama's "overreach", his 175 (as of March 2014) EO count in six years comes nowhere near sainted Ronald Reagan's 381 total (Obama would have to double his EO count in the next two years to even come close).

Despite what Boehner claims, this whole thing smells of setting up for cause to impeach.  They couldn't impeach over the birth certificate, they couldn't impeach over Solyndra, they couldn't impeach over ObamaCare, and the Far Right are finding out they don't have much to impeach with over Benghazi, the IRS SuperPAC investigation, Benghazi, the prisoner exchange for the sole POW we had in Afghanistan, Benghazi, Obama's method of shoelace tying, and BENGHAZI.

So they're going after Executive Orders.  The plan looks to be simple:

1) Get the courts to establish that Executive Orders in general are not allowed under the Constitution: that it's executive law-making, conflicting with the Legislative power to make laws.
2) Argue that considering Obama used EOs throughout his tenure, he was committing impeachable acts all along.
3) IMPEACH.

Which brings up the unpleasant reality that EVERY President - save William Henry Harrison (I died in 30 days!) - would have to be retroactively impeached.  Not to mention the fact that any future President coming out of the Republican ranks (if that ever happens again, considering how f-cked the party's becoming at the national level) is suddenly going to have no executive power of his/her own to wield if Boehner and the Far Right succeed at this.

This obsession with stopping Obama at all costs is both ridiculous and dangerous.  Ridiculous in that the GOP's efforts are going against decades if not centuries of effective government traditions.  Dangerous in that if any of these efforts succeed we could see the end of the system of checks and balances that made our federal republic work all those centuries.

The courts already established clear limits on EOs: banning them outright can restrict a President's ability to enact any law not without instructions spelled out by Congress to the letter.  And considering how some laws may conflict with others, it'd end up to the courts clearing that chaos which could take years to resolve, which a smartly-worded EO would otherwise straighten out.  We've been doing this for decades, as history shows us: even during the questionable periods of civil war and world wars, overall this system worked.

Now, just to deny Obama anything, Boehner and his congressional allies want to wipe that all out.

"This is about faithfully executing the laws of our country," says Boehner.

Problem with that, Mr. Boehner, when you were asked which laws weren't being executed, you couldn't provide a single example.

If you were serious about this, Mr. Boehner, you'd have a violation on hand, you'd have an excuse, before coming to the cameras to make your threat known.

The Speaker of the House is inviting chaos into our system of checks and balances.  This is what we've come to.

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Schadenfreude In Florida Episode 37: Tee-Hee Over The Pee-Pee

I wanted the subtitle to read "Losing the Pissing Match" but it's not exactly language that's Safe For Work and all...

That said, here's what the Supreme Court said to Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott when he petitioned them to overturn the lower court rulings striking down his efforts to make state employees undergo "suspicion-less" mandatory drug testing: Piss off.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Florida Gov. Rick Scott's petition to review a ruling that his random drug testing policy for state employees is unconstitutional, the latest in a series of legal battles facing the governor.

The decision leaves in place a May 2013 appeals court ruling against Scott's 2011 executive order making consent to suspicionless drug testing a condition of employment. A judge had previously concluded that the program, covering up to 85,000 state workers, violated Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did grant Scott some leeway, saying drug testing without suspicion could be used in "certain safety-sensitive categories of employees — for instance, employees who operate or pilot large vehicles, or law enforcement officers who carry firearms in the course of duty..."

Getting tested the one time you're getting hired - I've had to do that with each of the county and city library jobs I was hired to - may be questionable, but it's a one-time deal and an argument can be made then for doing it (part of making sure the applicant is fit to begin work).

But Scott and his ilk were pushing for ongoing testing even after getting hired, arguing they wanted "clean safe workplaces."  While testing someone who is clearly under-performing and showing the signs of drug abuse may be warranted, constantly testing everybody ignoring actual innocence becomes a form of harassment.  It's a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection from warrantless searches.  (It also runs the risk of tagging a clean person with a "false positive" result, and that's a nightmare nobody deserves to suffer)

There may be an argument for drug testing in the workplace (the courts did leave wiggle room to test high-risk employees like cops and drivers), but not when a crook like Rick "Kickbacks From My Chain of Clinics" Scott is making that argument.  This is a guy whose wife oversees the trust that Scott's business holdings were placed under - including a clinics chain Solantic that profits from Scott's efforts to privatize Medicaid programs - and who'll expect to make even more money pushing drug-testing programs - his push to drug-test welfare recipients is another bag of bad ignorance and unjustified punishment - that would have to use his clinics.  Putting his businesses into a "blind trust" isn't going to stop Scott from making decisions that will still profit himself and his family at the expense of the state.

Dear Floridians: this is why we don't vote Medicare Frauds into high office.  Please for the Love of God get the damn vote out this year and vote this crook out of the governor's office before he causes any more self-serving damage.

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Midterms 2014: Special Election FL-13 With Three Weeks To Go. Here's Some Polling.

I mentioned earlier there is a special election (even with the regular election still nine months away) being held to fill the vacancy for US House Florida District 13.  The polling back then was pretty much up for grabs, one side's poll services favoring their own candidate and all, and so I waited for a less-biased source to give us some update.

The local paper St. Pete (fine, fine) Tampa Bay Times came out with a poll a few days ago:

In the hard-fought and nationally watched campaign, 42 percent would vote for (Democratic candidate Alex) Sink, 35 percent for (Republican David) Jolly and 4 percent for Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby, according to an exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/WUSF Public Media poll of likely voters in Congressional District 13. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

Now, 42 percent for Democrat Sink over 35 percent to Republican Jolly isn't too shabby (7 percent difference), but you've got a third-party candidate in the Libertarian Overby sitting there at 4 percent and you've got a "margin of error" (the statistical probability that the polled population might be skewed) at 4 percent already that knocks the likelihood for Sink down to a 3 percent lead.  There's little room for error here.

The polling also notes what's at stake:

Of those who support Sink, 81 percent also support Obamacare. Of those who support Jolly, 84 percent also oppose Obamacare.

Supporters of both candidates felt passionately about the issue.

More than two-thirds of Sink and Jolly supporters said their candidate's position on the law was a "very important" or "somewhat important" reason for their support...

This is the first true campaign following the start-up of Obamacare (AKA the nowhere-near-universal-healthcare-like-all-other-capitalist-nations-deploy series of healthcare reforms) that's got it as an issue front-and-center.  Not the need for more jobs or better wages, but Obamacare.  There's a reason a lot of outside-the-district and even outside-the-state money is getting funneled into this: whoever wins this dictates what the primary nationwide party platform for the regular midterms will be.

If the Republican Jolly wins campaigning heavily against Obamacare, it will signal the rest of the Congressional GOP that they can use the repealing of it as their main weapon.  It will force the Democrats to play defense on the issue, talking about Obamacare rather than the more polling-friendly issues like raising the minimum wage and creating more jobs.

If the Democrat Sink wins campaigning in favor of Obamacare, and winning a Republican-designed gerrymandered district doing so, it will signal that repealing Obamacare is a losing argument for the Republicans.  The polling showed 47 percent oppose Obamacare in the district over 43 percent in favor, and if Sink still wins it means that issue didn't help Jolly over the hump.  It will free up the Democrats to campaign on their own issues, again the raising of the minimum wage and creating more jobs.

To be fair, this being a special election doesn't say much about who's going to succeed in November: that's still nine months away and anything can happen between then and now; there may be other factors at stake here such as voters sometimes voting for a fresh (party) face to serve a district after a long-standing incumbent (like Bill Young, who'd been serving in Congress since - Dear God - 1970?!) retires or dies; and while Obamacare may be the issue for 80+ percent of the polled, there may be other issues at stake for those who won't use the healthcare laws to make their decisions.

...Independent voters have the potential to play a big role in the race. According to the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections, about 37.1 percent of district voters are Republicans, 34.7 percent are Democrats and 24 percent have "no party affiliation." (The rest belong to smaller political parties.)

The poll found that independents aren't leaning strongly in either direction. Thirty-three percent of independents backed Sink, 27 percent backed Jolly, 9 percent backed Overby and 23 percent were undecided...

But, just saying, if Sink wins a Republican-designed district even with a controversial healthcare law dangling around her neck you're gonna see a lot of unhappy far right campaign consultants racing about for something else for their Tea-Party leaning candidates to rally around.  And there's not much else out there the GOP can campaign on as a positive...

And this is why, still vitally important y'all, to GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT people.  Gotta get those 23 percent undecided independents to make up their minds and vote for Sink.  This is key: for the LOVE OF GOD don't vote Republican...

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