Daily Loaf

How to solve the homeless crisis, the energy crisis and the banking crisis in Florida and around the world!

In St. Petersburg the taxpayers are being asked to take $450,000,000.00 (that’s about half a billion dollars!) of their tax money to build a new baseball stadium. In neighboring Hillsborough County, they are looking for a shelter to allow homeless people a place to sleep at night. Do you see a problem here?

Somehow the taxpayers are supposed to believe that bailing out millionaire baseball executives is going to be a better way to spend their hard earned money, than solving the issues of homelessness and a high crime rate. Meanwhile the monopoly electricity producers (TECO, PE, FP&L) are being allowed to gouge homeowners more on their electric bills (Largely due to fewer homeowners paying bills). And let us not forget, the banks are raising their fees and offering us less credit.

Recently a candidate for St. Petersburg City Council has suggested a “Half Billion Dollar Challenge” to the residents of his City. I believe we can solve all of the problems that I’ve listed, in St. Pete for less than that amount. And the rest of the State can easily follow the example, which can then be imitated around the Country and the World.

We begin by using the money to start up new businesses, instead of just building a shelter that continuously costs money and produces nothing. The business will be a day labor pool. Many homeless that I have met use Able Body Labor as their main source of income. We will be starting a competitor for this company that is run by and for the homeless. The business will be run out of a warehouse and will double as a homeless shelter, so those who can’t work will have a place to stay and those whole can work will run the various parts of the business such as the office, phones, accounting and the actual labor. The business; lets call it Home Labor Force, will be run like a co-operative. That means any profits will go back into the business, instead of being funneled up to a CEO who lives in another State. Another branch of this business will be exclusively used for producing solar energy products, lets call it Home Solar (Get it? They are no longer home-less). The factory will be another place that the homeless can use to sleep, as well as work to make money, get back on their feet and eventually buy a house. (Don’t let your local Rep tell you this can’t be done. They can create zoning for this. Zoning is what they do.)

Read the rest of this entry »

When reporters attack! Watch as St. Petersburg Times reporter Christina Silva nails St.Pete City Council Chair Jeff Danner on his lies about allowing peace groups to have input in the Baywalk sidewalk issue.

Thank God there are still a few reporters in this world that will stand up to the government when our representatives are so obviously fixing the facts and situations just prior to stealing another Constitutional right from the people.

Several groups were allowed to speak at the 10 a.m. meeting in St.Pete City Hall, both referred to as the (COW) Committee of the Whole and also as a workshop session. These groups did not include any of the demonstrators like St.Pete for Peace who have been using the sidewalk to exercise their 1st Amendment rights for many years. The City Council did allow members of the Chamber of Commerce to speak, most likely because the Chamber has been in support of removing free speech from the sidewalk in question, in a misguided belief that it is the 1st Amendment that has caused the financial collapse of the shopping center, and not the downturn in the economy or bad management.

It seems rather clear that Chairman Danner did not truly wish to have any advocates of free speech involved in the discussion of the sidewalk vacation or any alternatives. It is interesting that the only Council member who spoke about the 1st Amendment was Wengay Newton, who not only read his oath to the Constitution aloud at the previous meeting, but also voted consistently against giving the sidewalk away from the people to the corporations that own BayWalk. Leslie Curran switched her vote back and forth, and spoke favorably about the protesters at the previous meeting. But at the last meeting she shook her head in strong approval when Chairman Danner said, “Do not mistake me for being on the side of the protesters,” “I think what they were doing was deplorable.” Just before they voted against vacating the sidewalk.

So it would seem that these two flip-floppers, Danner and Curran, were: first for it, then at one point were against the vacation, perhaps because they are up for re-election and opposed by candidates who support the US Constitution. And perhaps they thought the vacation of the sidewalk was a “done deal” like Council Member Kennedy had said, in which case they thought they could cast a populist vote safely and without repercussion. (This tactic was undertaken by Tarpon Springs City Commissioner Peter Nehr, during the all-night WalMart hearing — he voted safely against WalMart, because he knew the votes were there for it to pass anyway. When he ran for State House, WalMart gave him the maximum contribution. They obviously knew where his true heart lay.)

But it would appear that Danner and Curran didn’t know there’d be one vote too many, cast by wildcard Herb Polson, and a tie caused the motion to fail (someone was not following the playbook). The following week it was Herb Polson asking for a re-vote on the issue, to now undo what he had done. And then when the City got its Do-Over, something had changed. Council Member Karl Nurse decided to show some photos from previous protests (keep in mind that the pictures he showed ironically were from one of the other times the City broke the law in regards to this sidewalk, when they used barricades to create illegal “free speech zones,” which the City eventually had to remove). Now even Danner and Curran were terrified by the thought that they might be tainted by the same tie-dyed belief in the Constitution that Newton was into. So they went above and beyond to convince the Chamber of Commerce and other moneybags in the room that they were only opposed to the corporate welfare gifting of the sidewalk, because other smaller less deserving companies might want a similar handout once the precedent was set. What a show. And the smiles upon Danner’s and Curran’s faces told the tale. They had just voted against the vacation, and their vote failed. But it sure seemed like they got what they wanted, by their expressions, when the thing passed. Like I said, what a show.

I have re-read the City Charter for St.Pete, begged my friends for research help and searched the City website and Google, to get to the bottom of their Sunshine Law violations. The City of St. Petersburg does not even come close to government in the Sunshine. They are Partly Cloudy at best. The trouble is proving that they have violated the actual letter of the law and not just the spirit of it.

St. Pete allows backdoor meetings between the Mayor and developers and singled out Council Members. This is not allowed in my home city of Tarpon Springs (There is a loophole in the law that might allow them to get away with this one, until we challenge it). St. Pete also has some meetings where they do not allow public comment. This again is not the case in Tarpon Springs. We can comment on any agenda item, including the ever elusive consent agenda. We also have public comment on all of our City meetings including our workshop sessions. Oh yes, and our meetings start with public comment, for items that will not be on the agenda. St. Pete only allows public comment at the end of the meeting, at which no one knows what time that will be. This is an obvious tactic used to discourage those who would speak. And to further the abuse of the 1st Amendment, I’m told that they ban speakers from speaking more than once a month. Yes, it would appear that St. Petersburg has a proud tradition of discouraging free speech, on sidewalks and in City Hall.

So just what can be done about this? On my end, I will continue to do research. I remember a Florida House Bill, that was proposed to mandate public comment at the beginning of City and County Meetings throughout the State, as well as mandated comment on all agenda items. Help me find this Bill. Did it pass? Who sponsored it? Also we need to hound the ACLU to file suit against St. Pete to protect the Constitution. File pro se lawsuits of your own. Write letters to the Attorney General of the State of Florida and ask for his legal opinion in writing. Do your own research, and find out exactly what the rules are and make them public. Actively campaign against the incumbents on the St. Pete Council, and find candidates you can help to replace them. Hurry, time is running out!

There are news stations around the state and the country who reported the fight in City Hall, and you have no doubt seen it more than once yourselves. Just think, if these same stations had shown the video above with Silva and Danner. That’s where the real fight was. And better still; just think if all of these same news reporters would have acted like Christina Silva did that day. The City Council would have let the people be heard. And you can bet, the Council would have been afraid to violate our Constitution, and the vote would have gone the other way.

After finally viewing the entire October 1st 2009 St. Petersburg City Council meeting regarding the now infamous Baywalk sidewalk issue, I have noticed many interesting details that are worthy of mention. With just over a month to go until the City election, I found some interesting dynamics displayed. I must admit, the results did not follow my original expectations.

Jeff Danner, voted during the first hearing to give the sidewalk away. Then Danner  flip-flopped and voted against the idea at the last meeting. Could this be because his opponent in the District 8 race, Leonard Schmiege has been speaking out against giving the sidewalk away since the beginning?

Video after the break
Read the rest of this entry »

Lady Liberty, ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone – only darkness every day. Our St. Pete house just ain’t a home when she goes away. You can forget about solar panels in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mayor Rick Baker has completely robbed the city of all sunshine. And as for Lady Liberty, I wonder if she’s gone to stay. (Click here to hear the song that’s already playing in your head)

The St. Pete times recently reported that agenda items that come before the St. Petersburg City Council are a “done deal” before they are brought to a public forum, according to Councilman Jim Kennedy. This means that any time you or any member of the public speak at a city hearing, your testimony and evidence will not be considered by the board because they have already made up their mind in a meeting with the mayor days before. “It may be a done deal because it has been analyzed and its been massaged” said Kennedy, who openly admits that the Mayor regularly conducts private meetings with council members to ensure his ideas will get a majority vote.
Read the rest of this entry »

Mc Libel is a documentary that was recommended to me a couple of years ago by fellow activists who said it was eerily familiar to our own Wal-Mart experience. After viewing this important and inspiring film recently, I must recommend that all activists see this film immediately. It started with one woman-Helen Steel. She was the first to take a stand, and then she was soon followed by Dave Morris who fought by her side to the bittersweet end. The two British activists made history in the longest ever English trial, by taking on the multi-national corporation McDonald’s. 

It began in 1982 when both activists were busy handing out leaflets with their group London Greenpeace. The group started by protesting environmental issues such as nuclear power and social justice issues including Third World Debt. In 1985 they launched International Day of Action Against McDonald’s, which continues on Oct.16th to this day. In 1986 they produced a six-sided fact sheet called “What’s wrong with McDonald’s-Everything they don’t want you to know.” The leaflet attacked many aspects of the corporations business accusing them of exploiting children with their advertising, promoting an unhealthy diet, exploiting workers, and environmental damage as well as cruelty to animals.

London Greenpeace held regular meetings, and were soon infiltrated by private investigators hired by McDonald’s. They actually hired two separate firms, and even had them spying on each other, as well as the activist’s in the group. Some meetings actually had as many spies as it had activists. The information obtained by the spies was used to issue libel writs to 5 volunteers in the group. There was no public legal aid for libel cases and the only legal advice they got was that this type of law was extremely complex and would be very costly so best to just end it by apologizing to McDonald’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps FFWCC has become another permit dispensing agency, the same way Army Corps of Engineers and Southwest Florida Water Management District have.   Many activists have already noticed this trend, but for those who are learning new things, pull up a chair. 

Do you remember reading about the Gopher Tortoises that were being stolen from the proposed Wal-Mart site on the banks of the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs? Wal Mart snuck in late in the day on Friday, and illegally proceeded to use large backhoes and other heavy equipment to rip up the earth and tear 8 gopher tortoises from their homes. I happened to be driving by on my way to an important appointment and saw the commotion. I called Suncoast Sierra Club executive member Marc Washburn and he quickly went to the site in my stead. I also called Tarpon Springs City Commissioner Peter Dalacos, who not only went to the site, but physically blocked the law breakers from taking the tortoise from the property until State Officials arrived. With the help of WARN’s Colin Fiske and the Concerned Citizens of Tarpon Springs’ president Dory Larson, we got FFWCC to come out, but not without a fight.  Read the rest of this entry »

By taking the wisdom we have learned from past events, we can move forward free from the past and also enjoy freedom from the cycle of history repeating itself.  It has been said that class warfare has always been a part of our lives, even when it comes to our environment.  There are those who have more money who care more about sustaining their lifestyle, than they do about sustaining life on our planet.  There are those with less money, who care more about sustaining life, than allowing those with more to have it their way.  The difference has often been that those with more have also had more opportunity to squelch the views of those with less.  This is where a positive change is occurring. Many people far more educated than I am have told me stories and actually demonstrated how history has repeated itself.  I often respond to them by saying, “We are in a new era.  We have, for the first time in recorded history, several abilities that have never existed before” (that we know of).  These are:  1) The ability to travel anywhere on this planet in 24 hours or less, 2) The ability to talk to anyone, anywhere on this planet at any time, 3) The ability to translate every language in use today, 4) Access to “all” known information via internet, 4) The ability to travel to other planets.  As far as we know, these things have never before been available to mankind.  Therefore, we can not judge the future, by the limited scope of the past.  Our future need not be a bleak repeat of things we know all to well.  No more reruns of old tragedies and dramas.  With these new found abilities, we have found ourselves on a new path.  We are on the precipice of something much greater.  Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you, like me have wondered what a revolution might look like in today’s America. Would it be a blood bath, like something out of the movie Braveheart? Or perhaps a Guy Fawkes masked hero would present the path, like the film V for Vendetta?

Well, first we must talk about the epidemic. The impetus for drastic change, in Braveheart, was of course the cruel way Scotland’s citizens were treated by the King of England. And in V for Vendetta, a literal epidemic was created with a virus sprayed on the citizens, and the ensuing panic and mayhem allowed the government to take dictatorial control of the country. The epidemic I am referring to in our current situation is not the swine flu, however. It is the corporate greed and corruption that has allowed our rights to be stripped away, and our planetary environment to be brought to the brink of disaster. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps , you’ve noticed a theme in my articles or maybe it is simply a theme amongst the corporate thieves and their publicly elected counterparts. The theme: bailouts, corporate welfare, our tax dollars, being used against us and our environment, all while CEO’s line their pockets with our hard earned cash.

Now this time it’s the proposed waterfront stadium in St. Petersburg. They want over $450 million of tax payer dollars to build a private business that will produce profits for its owners-not the taxpayers who have been asked to foot the bill. And you can guess what’s next; they will destroy the environment with their plan to dredge and fill the bay to make more room for their monstrosity. Their proposed ball field will destroy seagrass beds right near a freshwater spring and affect endangered manatee as well as dolphin.  Read the rest of this entry »

Want to pay $35 million to help T. Rowe Price destroy our wetlands in the middle of a drought? Sounds like a deal that’s too good to be true right? Well I guess if you are T. Rowe Price it’s a good deal. It is yet another pre-emptive bailout for another corporation poised to do something ludicrous and destructive with our money. They are offered our tax money to pull off the ultimate shell game.

Get this, they are being offered millions of State and County dollars to create new jobs in Florida, but wait, follow the ball, they are already in Florida. They are in Hillsborough County to be exact, and they are planning to move to Pasco County. So, just in case you lost sight of it, they are moving from one place in the state to another and taking money for creating new jobs in the same state in which they are moving. Now if they moved from another State to here, maybe it would make sense, but instead they have actually threatened to move to another State from here, if they don’t get the money. It kind of sounds like extortion: “Give us millions or we’ll leave the State”. And what about the loss of jobs in Hillsborough County, when they leave? And while we are speaking of lost jobs, what about the 288 job cuts T. Rowe has announced. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of us growing weary of hearing about the energy crisis, coupled with the concept of more bailouts for corporations such as AIG and the rest of Wall Streets finest, we may finally have the “pick-me-up” you’ve been craving, in the form of green sustainability.

The truth is, “bailouts”, are not just limited to Wall Street thieves. Energy Companies like Progress Energy have been granted a “pre-emptive bailout”, for a boondoggle that hasn’t even been built yet. No longer do corporations have to screw up and gamble away their money in order to have the government hand them more of our hard earned cash. Now they can be given the right to reach into our wallets, to subsidize their gambling schemes before they even get started. It’s called Advanced Cost Recovery and the proposed Levy County nuclear plant is the first of more to come. Progress Energy started adding 25% to their customer’s bills this January of 2009, in part to pre-pay for their nuclear power project. They are taxing citizens for this corporation’s private gain.

But wait, where’s the “pick me up”, I referred to earlier? Like you, the only thing that makes me more weary, than hearing of another bailout, is hearing another person complain about it without offering any hope or solutions. Well, this time we have both. I have been researching this issue for some time now and have uncovered several solutions. Read the rest of this entry »