Category — Florida

Another Florida public official has resigned to spend more time with their lawyers.

The Miami Herald reports:

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll abruptly resigned Tuesday after law enforcement officials questioned her about ties to a purported veterans charity organization at the center of a $300 million multi-state racketeering investigation.

Ms Carroll was the female version of Allen West – retired military officer and a Tea Party conservative, who was ‘poised for great things’ in the Republican Party.

Elections and laws keep preventing people like this from achieving their full potential.

Dave Barry in the Miami Herald covers the newest game in Florida: The Python Challenge.

The game is covered at the official web site, www.pythonchallenge.org. If you put Python Challenge into Google it will send you to www.pythonchallenge.com, which is a game for programmers learning the Python language.

Florida has a python hunting season in an attempt to keep down the number of pythons that have infested the Everglades, and to reduce the number of people in the state to who think wading in a swamp that is known to be infested with constrictors that can swallow them is a reasonable thing to do. Every contestant who is swallowed improves the gene pool and save the lives of the native animals that inhabit the ‘Glades.

They are offering cash prizes for the biggest python caught, and the most pythons caught, but discriminate by not offering anything of value to the pythons, other than a possible free meal.

It definitely hit the 20s around here and the wind chill was single digits. Hopefully the fleas paid the price, because even with my electric heaters, my house was not comfortable. It is fine down to 50 degrees, but I lose comfort below that.

The new pattern for this winter seems to be a cold front coming through about every 5 days. Just before it gets here the temperature rises as warm air is sucked it from the Gulf, but when the winds shift to out of the North the temperature drops 40+ degrees.

The old pattern was three cold snaps per winter beginning around Christmas with the last one around Easter. That is no longer the case.

This is in contrast with Fairbanks, Alaska which might have a high near freezing this week.

I went shopping today and the sale of fireworks so people can blow things up for the New Year is in full swing. I don’t understand why they do it, or why they don’t buy decent watches so they can do it at the right time, but, this is South Fundistan and they just have ‘to believe’ that they are doing the right thing to make it right.

Even the BBC noticed that Tea Party Whacko Allen West has finally admitted defeat. This was after a partial recount in St Lucie County showed that he lost to Patrick Murphy by an even bigger margin than originally reported.

I noticed that a lot of people are talking about West running for re-election, but that’s not actually true. Florida redistricted and the make-up of the new version of his district was a much tougher place for a Republican, so he moved to a different district to run again. Murphy, who lost to West in 2010, also moved because he wanted to directly challenge West and would have had to spend a lot of money changing his campaign materials if he didn’t face West again.

A lot of money was wasted on not much of anything, but that’s Florida politics.

The Air Force has one fewer $400 million F-22 Raptors in its inventory due to an ‘incident’ on Tyndall Air Force Base. The pilot assigned to the 325^th Fighter Wing declared an emergency and ejected safely. The aircraft impacted within the perimeter of the base.

The Air Force has stated that the accident had nothing to do with the problematic oxygen system in the F-22.

As news of the record criminal fine levied against BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster was echoing around the Gulf Coast, a fire on another Gulf oil platform was reported. Two people are missing and four are badly burned on the shallow-water platform South of Grand Isle, Louisiana.

The initial report is that the platform was shut down for maintenance when the accident occurred, so only a minimal amount of oil has leaked into the Gulf and the fire was put out quickly. I hope they can understand why Gulf Coast residents might not wholeheartedly accept that initial conclusion.

As I assumed would happen, the Republicans in charge are focusing on the counties in the ‘official election probe’.

There is apparently no need to look at the attempt to implement a last minute purge of voters lists, or the effect of padding the ballot with 11 constitutional amendments, but they might look to see if cutting the early voting to 8 days from 14 could have affected something.

I can save them some time – St Lucie County had equipment problems, so they had to recount some ballots to ensure accuracy. I realize that wanting to have an accurate count is a foreign concept for Republicans, but some people believe in it.

It doesn’t take much of a ‘probe’ to figure out that the three largest counties in the state are going to take the longest to count ballots, and when it takes someone a half-hour or more to read and mark the ballot, you are going to have a problem.

If the Republicans actually wanted any of those amendments to pass they would have put them on an off-year primary ballot when the turn-out was low and more Republicans than Democrats would be likely to vote. The only reason for putting them on the general election ballot was to screw up the system, and everyone paying attention knows it.

The Local Puppy Trainer has a standard piece of misinformation from the President of the Florida Senate: Groups press for election reform in Florida

“There are places in the state that obviously had severe problems, but I question whether 67 counties need to be reformed,” he said. “The last thing we need is more micromanagement by the state.”

Gaetz said he would be interested to see whether the “left-leaning” League of Women Voters would offer any criticism at its press conference of Susan Bucher, the former Democratic state representative now serving as the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County.

“I would think the people in Palm Beach County would be terribly embarrassed by their supervisor of elections,” Gaetz said. “Just because Susan Bucher can’t count votes, there’s no reason why (Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections) Paul Lux needs to be micromanaged.”

Don Gaetz is my state Senator and he knows full well and good that the problems have nothing to with ‘micromanagement’, but are a result of the changes that the Republicans in the legislature made in the election laws, changes he voted for.

The misogynist attack on the League of Women Voters and Susan Bucher doesn’t change the fact that the legislature reduced the number of early voting days from 14 to 8, despite the fact that the two previous governors extended early voting because the 14 days wasn’t sufficient to meet the needs of voters. The complaints aren’t about counting the votes, they are about being able to vote, and Gaetz knows it.

Paul Lux dealt with 128,885 registered voters of whom 95,193 voted on a 4-page ballot. Susan Bucher dealt with 810,186 registered voters of whom 559,136 voted on a 6-page ballot. It doesn’t take much math to see that voters in Palm Beach took 50% longer to vote than those in Okaloosa, or that it takes less time to count the votes in Okaloosa than in Palm Beach.

It’s nice to see that the Republicans are announcing at the beginning that they have no intention of admitting they screwed things up, and certainly don’t intend to fix them. This makes it a lot easier to convince voters to get rid of them in 2014.

I assume that most people have been checking the Florida results for the Presidential election which stood at a 50.00% – 49.12% win for Zero, but they should also look at the fate of the 11 constitutional amendments that the Republican legislature put on the ballot to see what ‘swing state voters’, like Florida’s think of the Republican agenda.

1. Anti-Obamacare failed 48.5-51.5%
2. Tax break for disabled vets passed 63.26-36.24%
3. State revenue limits change failed 42.44-57.56%
4. Tax break for vacation homes failed 43.18-56.82%
5. Legislative control of state courts failed 36.95-63.05%
6. No public funding for abortions failed 44.91-55.09%
8. School vouchers/funding for religions failed 44.53-55.47%
9. Tax break for spouses of KIA vets and first-responders passed 61.68-38.32%
10. Business tax break failed 45.49-54.51%
11. Tax break for low-income seniors passed 61.26-38.74%
12. Change in the Student Rep in the university system failed 41.55-58.45%

There was no amendment 7, and looking at the percentages it is obvious that people who voted for Rmoney voted against the GOP agenda. The three tax breaks that passed looked decidedly liberal to me. Amendments 4, 8, and 10 are ‘business friendly’ or privatization moves and the voters don’t like them.

If Democrats would start running people who oppose the GOP’s agenda, people like Alan Grayson, they will win elections. If the Democrats stop looking for and supporting Blue Dogs they will regain Congress. Voting for Republican ideas is not the way to bring voters to the polls or get elected.

Final Update: Zero was announced as the Official unofficial winner of the Florida election by the Secretary of State. The official results can’t be announced until after the 16^th, the deadline for foreign absentee ballots.

Still checking in with the Florida results because turning the ballot into a novella was a really bad idea that slows everything up.

As of the close of business on Friday Zero is 64K ahead of Money Boo Hoo, and that difference is growing the more votes that get counted.

Allen West has filed suit to get two counties, St Lucie and Palm Beach, recounted. Palm Beach will definitely get a recount because there is only an 11 vote difference between West and Murphy with nearly 124K votes cast, but St Lucie isn’t even close with a 13K Murphy advantage. The other thing is that West won a higher percentage of votes than Connie Mack, the Republican Senate candidate, and almost the same percentage as Rmoney. The numbers look normal. Unless something is found, Allen West is going to get the bill for the St Lucie recount.

Saturday Update: the current count, which is probably close to the final, shows that Zero actually polled a majority of votes cast, not simply the most, but a real majority of 50.01%. He leads Money Boo Hoo by almost 74K votes. There are provisional ballots to be judged and the foreign absentee ballots can keep coming until the 16^th, but the provisionals are probably Democrats and there can’t be that many more absentee ballots to arrive.

Bronco Bama has increased his lead over Money Boo Boo to over 55K this morning, but absentee ballots are still being counted.

Allen West has requested a recount in one of the counties in his loss to Patrick Murphy in District 18. More money wasted, because he has to pay for it.

Oh, people need to stop comparing the loser in Ohio, Secretary of State Jon Husted, to Katherine Harris. Ms Harris succeeded in stealing Florida, while Husted totally failed in Ohio. Given the shoddy treatment that poor Kate received after accomplishing her mission, I don’t think Karl Rove is going to be very nice to Husted in the aftermath of his failure.

Update: It looks like it will be tomorrow before this is finished as Broward, Duval, and Palm Beach counties still haven’t finished counting absentee ballots. Zero is now 59K ahead of Rmoney.

The absentee ballots still haven’t been counted in Miami-Dade, Broward, or Duval counties, so Florida still doesn’t know who won. Bronco Bama has been leading Money Boo Boo by 50K all day, which is good because it is outside of the automatic recount limit. If the difference drops to .5% or less, there is an automatic recount, and no one is interested in that expense.

Carlos Gimenez, the Republican mayor of Maimi-Dade has announced that he intends to ask the Fraudster-in-chief and legislature to extend the early voting hours in the next session in hopes to avoid being tarred-and-feathered by his constituents. If there are any real politicians in Tallahassee it will be the first bill taken up and passed in the next session because if it isn’t done, it will be a major issue at the next election, and not just in Miami.

This might be over tomorrow with initial totals finalized, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The much reduced staff of the Supervisor of Elections in Miami-Dade has to be exhausted tonight. Fortunately Florida is irrelevant this year or too many of us would be having flashbacks from 2000.

I arrived at 11:15AM CST and it took me almost 15 minutes to get out, which is 50% longer than usual, and there was actually someone else voting at the same time, which is a 100% increase from normal.

It wasn’t just the 4 sides of the ballot, to cut costs they only had one set of workers for the two precincts that vote at my town hall. The majority of voters in the precincts use absentee ballots, although I saw a few people also used early voting. I had done that before, but there is only one location open in the south county, and the road is under construction, so it is a real pain to get in and out of there.

Of course, just because I voted doesn’t mean it will get counted, so I’ll be checking to see the reporting. My votes are rather obvious in South Fundistan.

The polls finally close in Florida at 7PM CST, not 7PM EST.

I am still getting robo-calls.

Update: Here’s the official unofficial Florida results from the Florida Department of State. They don’t become official until everything is certified after all of the challenges and court cases are resolved.

These are some of my choices for the election:

I’m not voting for the candidates for either major party for President or Senator. I didn’t vote for the major party candidates when they were elected before, and I refuse to lower my standards.

I’ll vote for the Democrat for Congresscritter because he is the best of a bad lot.

For local offices I’m voting against every incumbent, because they don’t believe in government, and it shows in their lack of competence.

None of the amendments to the state constitution is worth voting for, as they either help special interest groups or weaken local government.

I am voting to increase the millage for the Ocean City-Wright First District because they provide good service and are up against a funding wall because of fallen home prices. I want house fires put out, so it has to be funded. This isn’t an immediate increase, but it makes any necessary increase possible.

I’m voting to retain all three Supreme Court Justices. These votes are normally non-partisan but this year the Republicans are urging people to vote against retention so the Fraudster-in-Chief can appoint new justices. Scott has enough to do finding replacements for all of the politicians who have to resign, or are removed from office for their illegal and/or immoral conduct. I don’t want to consider what kind of appointments the CEO of company hit with the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud fine in history would make. I prefer the boring, middle-of-the-road, no excitement Florida Supreme Court currently in place.

It is a crowded ballot, so people who haven’t looked at it in advance are going to spend a lot of time wading through it. If you just vote no on all of the amendments you will get out of the voting booth a lot quicker.

The Local Puppy Trainer provides some public service for the Supervisor of Elections in their piece: Voters warned of fraudulent supervisor of elections letter.

It would appear that some voters [cough Dems cough] are receiving fraudulent letters claiming to be from election officials that promise dire circumstances if the voter doesn’t respond within two weeks. If you receive one of these letters the election people would like you to take it and the envelop it came in to your local supervisor of elections.

This is probably a voter caging scheme to challenge people at the polls. The Republicans have been doing this crap for years.

I would like to correct an Internet misconception – Rmoney’s airship didn’t crash, Romney Blimp Makes Emergency Landing In Davie Field.

The pilot did the best thing he could do in a blimp facing strong headwinds, he got it down to the ground safely so it wouldn’t crash. It wasn’t at a recognized airport, so it was an ’emergency landing’. Winds are a problem for any balloon, even those with engines.

Susie Madrak noticed a piece about the changes the Fraudster-in-chief has made to the Florida unemployment insurance system. Basically, the Republicans have made it more difficult to get the benefits than it is to register to vote. The system is in the red by almost $3 billion and they cut the rates. Republicans just can’t handle money.