Tag Archives: Florida

2008 Election, Florida, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Zimmerman Charged | Post-Racial Administration

Florida Prosecutor Angela Corey arrested George Zimmerman, described by the NY Times as a White-Hispanic, charging him with second degree murder.

This incident was over six weeks ago, February 26, 2012. It’s relevant to what prosecutor Angela Corey said today. The joke of the day . . .

“We do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. We prosecute based on the facts on any given case as well as the laws of the state of Florida.”

It is shameful how the media, known to create campaign themes for the President, started from day 30 (not day 1), with doctored reporting, fraudulent reporting, about the racial aspect of this case that did not exists until they introduced it.

Without knowing whether Trevon Martin’s death was murder or self-defense, like some published tapes, eyewitness accounts and the police reports suggest, President Obama’s entry in the case leaves no presumption of due process, innocent until proven guilty, or even to warn about stirring up tension, racial tension, because Trevon Martin is black. The absence of anything presidential in this matter, to urge calm and respect for the laws, was the go-ahead for the race industry and the rhyming reverends, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Controversy hit fever pitch after Barack Obama, when asked for comment on the case took the unprecedented step of commenting on the still ongoing investigation stating “If I had a son, he’d look like Trevon”.

Eric Holder’s “people,” the New Black Panthers,  issued a bounty for Zimmerman’s capture for them to administer justice. There are Wanted Dead or Alive posters out there. Not surprisingly, Attorney General Eric Holder doesn’t have a problem with private citizens soliciting kidnapping and who knows what else? Under Obama, it isn’t the D.O.J. It’s the D.O. Black J.

Where the New Black Panthers are concerned, Holder’s record is dropping charges on them for voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 election. This, after they were already found guilty by default. So there is no expectation that the Justice Department under Obama will do anything about their threats this time. Justice under Obama is not blind.

With the big racial controversy successfully up and running, other irresponsible Democrats pile on to the racial angle. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) plants her face in front of a camera and says the shooting was a hate crime.

After all this, if you are wondering why President Obama has not come out to call for calm, something to ease the racial tensions spawned by the false media accounts, it is because things are going just fine. For his re-election. He’ll kill it if he were to come out and act like a President should act. There’s nothing ‘post-racial’ about this guy.

Now that the trial process is underway, at least we will see who the legal victim is. Martin or Zimmerman?

Economy, Pensacola, Politics, Supreme Court

Obamacare Is Non-Severable, VOID

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Let’s go back 14 months to January 31, 2011 when Pensacola’s own Judge Vinson of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida became the second federal judge to strike down Obamacare’s individual mandate.

But Judge Vinson went further. He dealt with what the Supreme Court is having to decide now, whether or not the legislation is severable. Whether some parts can be stricken and the rest stand?

Judge Vinson’s decision, which was proffered by the government’s attorney, was that “the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit.” Accordingly, Vinson concluded: “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.” {emphasis added}

Had the administration followed the legal process, they would have either appealed the decision or requested a stay. They did neither. The reaction of the lawless administration was that because the judge did “not order the government to stop implementing the law, a senior administration source said ‘implementation will proceed at pace.’”

Then in August 2011, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit also ruled that the provision of the law that requires people to buy health insurance or face an annual penalty is unconstitutional. The ruling affirmed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Florida.

Curiously though, the court also ruled that absent the mandate, the Act can continue. What this means is that three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit pulled a severability clause out of thin air. Because neither the individual mandate or the Act itself contain a severability clause, on purpose.

The future of our country and our relationship with the government rests on whether this bill dies at the Supreme Court. If not, then the 2012 election will be repeal and replace. There is a private-sector alternative.

Links: Obamacare Is Void, Lawless Administration Doesn’t Care  |  11th Circuit Court Of Appeals Affirms Judge Vinson, Sort Of  |  An Alternative To Obamacare Already Exists

Florida, Pensacola, Politics

Mayor Hayward’s Town Hall Tonight

Sorry I won’t be able to attend the town hall meeting at the Vickery Center tonight, but I do have a question for the mayor. (In case you are going.)

Mr. Mayor, at your April 2011 town hall meeting at Gull Point, you said that the city has a plan to deal with the chronic fecal contamination in Bayou Texar. The health department again had to close the bayou last week. Please tell me what the city’s plan for Bayou Texar is, and what has been done so far?

Economy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Bayou Texar Closed Again

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“Visit Pensacola! You’ll love our shit!” There’s your Chamber of Commerce bumper sticker.

Like water sports? Fishing, swimming, water skiing? Come to Pensacola. But just don’t go in Bayou Texar for any of that. The Health Department has closed it for the umpteenth time due to excessive levels of fecal contamination.

It happens so often now, that the Health Department no longer calls it what it is like they used to. Now they’ve sanitized the warning. Now they just call it ‘bacteria.’ You have to call the Health Department to find out the nature of that bacteria. I called to ask. It’s the same as it has always been. Fecal bacteria.

What’s worse, the reaction to it is also the same. After having abandoned the study to find out the sources of the contamination years ago, the city and county officials continue to ignore the problem. Apparently, unless it has anything to do with BP, they’re not interested in cleaning up their own back yard.

Link: Bacteria prompts Bayou Texar health alert

Economy, Florida, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics, Whiners

Occupy Everything, What’s Their Goal?

When you think about the Organizing Everything protests and Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, and Barack Obama, do you ever think of the SEIU? Maybe most people would just think that the administration would do anything, like endorsing these protesters, to draw the focus away from their failed policies and onto the bogeyman, Wall Street.

Despite all attempts from the Left to legitimize these Marxist mobs by comparing them to Tea Party rallies, these two videos will, all on their own, show them for protest-corporate-greedwhat they are. Anti-capitalists, socialists, and then some.

First up is radical labor organizer Stephen Lerner, serving on the International Executive Board of the 2.2 million member Service Employees International Union, SEIU. He intends to take it to the next level and terrorize the families of bank executives in their homes as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Stephen Lerner . . .

There’s moments in history where people take action and do something heroic. Where we do something heroic. Where we take risks.

If we are really serious about movement building then we think one part is we have to act heroically. That we have to inspire people by our actions and we have to be willing to take incredible personal and collective risks.

And that’s the time and there’s moments where history shifts and we’re going to decide if it shifts.

And this one is an interview with one of the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street group. She says up-front exactly what they’re all about. Anti-capitalism, anti-corporation.

Now this third video just shows that some pundits on the Left, like talk show host Mike Papantonio, are a little out of step with the movement. Doing what lawyers do, progressive Papantonio says capitalism is great! Ed Shultz was speechless. Papantonio starts at 3:50 into the video.

However, the title of his video, Now’s The Time to Get Mad and Do Something, is right in tune with Stephen Lerner. Looks like he is inciting some front yard action himself. He does go on to whine about something local. The ATU / ECAT dispute. The union is the victim. They want to be exempt from the Obama depression. Oh well. He says they are being attacked by a foreign corporation that operates the bus transportation for Escambia County. The AFL-CIO affiliate is considering a second strike on the backs of the poor.

Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics, Race Relations

Papantonio And Other Bigots

Ring of Fire radio host Mike Papantonio is still calling the ‘Tea Party’ and the ‘Republican Party’ a bunch of racists. According to this video, Rick Outzen and Chauncey DeVega agree.

Mike Papantonio . . .

It’s the Republican Tea Party, it’s the same people. They’re interchangeable. . . . They are the Republican Party.

What we have here is the Left’s continuing and tired accusation of racism. Well, that and three guys living in their own bubble somewhere.

Maybe someone will show these three bigots this article. Proof? that the tea party people are racists. Not only are they racists, but according to Papantonio, ‘they are insane.’

Link: Are they racists? Lets see.

Florida, Pensacola, Politics, Race Relations

Lunch With Otis

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My annual trek down to the seafood festival yesterday turned out to be something else. I met Otis.

Otis was walking away from the festival and I was walking to it. From a distance, I could see that this guy has something going on. I mean, aside from the bright red hat and umbrella. Curiosity getting the best of me, I had to stop and talk to him.

He let me take his picture then we talked. Knowing that I wanted to use his picture in my blog, I wanted to get his name right. And having nothing to write on or with, I pulled out my wizbang iPhone and recorded his name in the voice recorder. What followed was not what I expected.

Turns out he was just looking around. Asked if he had any of the seafood there he said no, he didn’t have any money. Upon which I instituted my own stimulus program. He accepted my offer to buy him lunch. He had calamari for the first time, some crawfish pie, and an adult beverage in a can. I ate the same, except for the beer. I’m not a big beer drinker.

I didn’t talk about politics with him, on purpose. We seemed to enjoy each others company and I didn’t want to do something that might have spoiled that chance encounter. I mean, it just didn’t seem the time or place to discuss liberal v conservative politics, or to point out that people like President Obama think that I hate black people and poor people because I consider myself allied with the tea party movement.

Lunch with Otis audio

Transcript:

  • Ross: Otis Womak, works at the Coffee Cup restaurant. Are you a cook?
  • Otis: A dish washer.
  • Ross: A dish washer, oh, outstanding.
  • Otis: I was dishes. I {unintelligible) work there for six and a half years. I came over to see my momma and daddy in the nursing home. So I ran down here to some, ya know ….
  • Ross: Get a little seafood?
  • Otis: Yeah. No I didn’t get no seafood I had no money.
  • Ross: Oh man.
  • Otis: I’m broke, today. So I go over there (unintelligible)
  • Ross: Ya wanna go eat some seafood?
  • Otis: Huh!
  • Ross: Come on with me.

It all worked out just fine. I’m satisfied in knowing that we both had a good meal and some fellowship from complete strangers. I gave him a ride home and called it a day.

Economy, Florida, Media, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics

ECAT Drivers Are Driving

Carlton Proctor at the Pensacola News Journal spoke to Michael Lowery, president of Local 1395 about the ECAT union bus drivers going on strike. Lowery also spoke to PNJ reporter  Thyrie Bland.

He told Proctor

“This is all about fair treatment on the job, it’s not about wages. It’s about fair treatment.”

He told Bland

“The employees have gone over 1,000 days without a raise, and working conditions are the worst I’ve seen in 16 years.”

Which Mr. Lowery are we to believe? And does it matter? The evolving version of why they went on strike looks a bit unorganized. Certainly not characteristic of organized labor. Keyword ‘organized.’

Economy, Florida, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics, Uncategorized

ECAT Working Conditions, Worst In 16 Years

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The raised fist (also known as the clenched fist) is a salute and logo most often used by left-wing activists, such as: Marxists, anarchists, socialists, communists, pacifists, trade unionists, the SEIU, and black nationalists.

Escambia County Area Transit (ECAT) bus drivers are on strike. Thyrie Bland at the Pensacola News Journal writes ECAT drivers on strike, Wage issue halts public transit for thousands.

The human aspect of the bus drivers going on strike is inescapable. Their riders are their customers. They are people who don’t have personal transportation and that includes the working poor. They also include physically handicapped folk like Mr. Freeman. Regardless, these are folks that need to get to their jobs so they can put food on the table and pay their bills, get to the store or the doctor.

Being responsible for creating a hardship on those with no alternative transportation is unconscionable. But is also standard fare for organized labor negotiating tactics. A lesson about labor unions and liberals in general is that they are liberals first, they are union first, and you are not on their list.

I bet these riders vote. And I also bet that they will remember who it was that caused them to miss work. It was a government labor union member who has a full-time job making from $12-16 an hour.

According to Michael Lowery, president of Local 1395 . . .

The employees have gone over 1,000 days without a raise, and working conditions are the worst I’ve seen in 16 years.

No raise in a couple of years huh? How does it feel (government labor union member) to be more like your neighbors? The ones that still have a job. Surprise! It happens in the private sector too! That’s life in the big city. The article brings to question a dispute of one half on one percent. If there’s a half of a percent in dispute in the current contract, then ‘work’ it out.

Working conditions? What working conditions? With all due respect to the drivers, you drive a bus.

Worst working conditions in 16 years? Which begs the question, when the head of my local labor union says that my working conditions are the worst that they’ve been in 16 years, just what am I paying my dues for?

Here’s an idea . . .

 

 

2008 Election, 2012 Election, Economy, Florida, Organized Labor, Politics, Race Relations

A Time For Choosing

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Since we were never given the choice in the last presidential election, the next election will be the time to choose. The 2008 election culminated in eight years of bashing Bush, and Bush not responding once. Americans were offered only hope and change. And who is against hope, and who is against change that makes things better? ‘Better’ being the operative word.

Obama never said, elect me and I’m going to nationalize health care and interfere with free-market economics by declaring some industries and businesses as ‘too big to fail,’ and borrow and spend trillions of dollars, not to stimulate the economy, but to ‘save’ union jobs in the public sector and the auto industry. He never said elect me and I’ll make it the responsibility of government to increase labor union membership.

Did we elect a President to put America on the fast track to Socialism? Do you think he would have beat Hillary Clinton in the primaries if he ran on what he is doing to this country today?

But now there is a choice. And it is no better illustrated than in Florida’s new law to drug-test welfare recipients and certain state employees in order to enforce a drug-free workplace. Progressives argue that Gov. Scott was trying to save money on the backs of the poor.

I don’t think it’s a matter of fiscal conservatism. Whether conservative or liberal, broke is broke. Just because someone is using drugs is no justification for spending more than we have. And it’s not that Scott, or Republicans, don’t care about poor people. They care about people who are on drugs and getting public monies.

The disintegration of the family among many poor people is a good reason to make bad choices. And it is welfare programs that tend to replace the father, or mother, and create this welfare class that is evermore dependent on the government. What Gov. Scott is doing is a move in the right direction. A move in the direction of teaching people some personal responsibility. Get off the drugs and you can continue to receive help.

This bill brings out the differences between the political Left and Right. One endeavors to fix the problem by attempting to fix the person. In this case, to provide an incentive to kick the habit and become self-sufficient again. The other seems content to be the giver of money, with no reason or motivation to quit a bad habit, which also tends to garner a strong voting block of welfare recipients.  In this context, it is Republican policies that try to heal and raise the poor by making them independent, if not just less dependent on government. It’s the old, “Give a man a fish and he won’t starve for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he won’t starve for his entire life” thing. It is Democratic policies that tend to keep the poor right where they are, dependent on the government for their livelihood, meager as it might be. The uneducated will easily identify with the person who gives them what they want instead of the one that wants them to earn what they want on their own. It’s about trying to teach people how to get off of welfare instead of trying to find out how we can find money to subsidize destructive behavior. Healing the person or family is better, more compassionate, than keeping them where they are. The bill isn’t about hating poor people.

Let’s look at the results of a landmark Democratic program. Nearly half of the country is getting some sort of government assistance. Does it look like the war on poverty (that began 50 years ago) has worked? There are drug rehabilitation programs out there, some at no cost. Individual responsibility means taking advantage of it and choosing to use what would be their drug money toward their own rehabilitation. How else does one teach personal responsibility if they have to do nothing on their own to make a change? They can get their welfare, if they choose to get off drugs first.

Democratic programs do nothing to reduce the number of poor people. What they have done is grow government and make poor people more dependent on government, and on the Democrat party. That is the result, whether intended or not.

There will always be people at the bottom of the ladder. The bottom of the ladder for U.S. citizens is half-way up the ladder compared to other countries. Democrat’s policies tend to make that ladder horizontal, destroying the notion of the individual.

Similarly, you will hear Democrats complain about the so-called income gap. They think it is evil that some people can make and accumulate wealth while some don’t.  I wouldn’t be so concerned about a gap between the rich and poor. I’d be concerned to make sure that the poor have every chance, the same chance, to get rich on their own.

Republicans have a HUGE up-hill battle to get people to understand that their policies are geared toward people helping themselves instead of relying on the government as their caretaker. Encouraging personal responsibility is so easily demagogued as Republicans hating the poor. And Democrats never miss the opportunity to do just that.

The immoral aspect of the Democratic social vision is that they put their faith in the government instead of the individual, which conditions poor people to look to them for sustenance. The fact that it builds strong voting blocks is no coincidence.

I’d like to see no minimum wage and no capital gains taxes. Since that has never been the case in my lifetime, one can only wonder how much better off ‘the poor’ would be. Again, it highlights the difference between the competing philosophies. Big government and control of economic conditions, or less government involvement and allowing free-market economic principles to work.

You don’t have to look far to see the difference. The free-market capitalism camp made us the greatest country in the world in under 200 years. The rest of the world is in the other camp and has nothing but shared misery to show for it.