By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor
Our debate on health care reform has been a disappointing state of affairs. Stories of town hall meetings turning violent and reports of organizations planting disruptors are hardly proud examples of a successful democratic process. It speaks volumes of how political a society we have come to be.
Click after the jump to watch what has been happening in Florida.
The good ol’ boys have a plan to make it so…
By Chris Ingram
PoHo contributor
My prediction has now come true. Mel Martinez is resigning his senate seat. Give it a couple of days, and I expect you’ll be reading about our oh-so-tanned governor announcing he is appointing himself to Martinez’s seat because (sorry to John Morgan), he’s “for the people.”
Yes, this is legal. Read the rest of this entry »
By Camile
Daily Loaf contributor
Cross-posted from the Daily Loaf blog.
Should a civic employee lose his/her job because they married an adult star?
That is the question behind the firing of Scott Janke, former town manager for Fort Myers Beach. The town council removed him from office with a vote of 5-0 after finding out that he is married to Jazella Moore.
Kiker acknowledged that Janke had violated no rules or laws and added that he had done a good job for the island town that had about 6,500 people, according to the 2000 Census. But the mayor was concerned whether Janke could remain effective and not distract the community from the business of the town along the state’s west coast. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m starting a new Saturday feature to wrap up news and blog posts you might have missed during your busy week. Here’s a look at the Week in Review:
New book blasts sportswriters for ‘hysteria’ regarding steroids – Mitch Perry. The WMNF anchor writes about a new book that lays the blame for steroid-mania at the foot of writers who aren’t aggressive. “The writers, the supposed experts, watched over the last 20-30 years as steroids became a very, very common substance. And they didn’t see it.”
Economic report calls Florida “a state in trouble.” The single most depressing (and real) assessment of Florida’s economic shortcomings we’ve ever seen. A must-read. (The graph above is from the report.)
POTUS and the Pope — Peter Schweitzer. Our contributors asks: if the US bishops are sideways with Barack Obama over his abortion stance, why is the pope so warmly receiving him?
Shadowy 527 group unloads YouTube attack ad against governor candidate Alex Sink (video). A Gainesville GOP leader is the face of the anti-Sink political group.
Bankruptcy judge sets auction date for Creative Loafing alt-newspaper chain. It is likely that two groups will bid in late August for ownership of Creative Loafing, pitting the company’s current management against lender Atalaya.
Why do I do this to myself? I get a call from perfectly nice people at the Greater Pinellas Democratic Club asking me to speak at one of their meetings (tonight at 6:30, to be precise) and I agree and then I am asked what topic, and I choose to speak on “Fixing Tampa Bay Politics.”
I should have opted for “Getting the Palestinians and Jews Together for Middle East Peace” instead. Tampa Bay politics are hopelessly damaged, so where do I even start?
You’ll have to attend to hear. And no, one of my suggestions will NOT be a plea for kumbaya-like bipartisanship or the like.
The social hour starts at 6 pm (let’s hope for the Club’s sake and listeners’ sakes that they’ve stocked a lot of vodka for me) and the meeting lasts until about 8 pm. It is at Banquet Masters in Pinellas Park, 8100 Park Boulevard. For reservations, call 727-360-3971.
A curious piece of political literature has been hitting South Tampa homes over the past few days as a handful of County Commissioner Ken Hagan’s supporters do what is called a “lit drop” of campaign literature.
Only it is not really campaign literature, or at least, it doesn’t carry the necessary campaign disclosures that a campaign advertisement would carry. Nor is it a county government piece, as it points out that it was “Not produced at taxpayer’s expense.”
That left some Democrats e-mailing me furiously about how this was akin to the stealth campaign that Buddy Johnson ran with federal dollars in 2008, the one being probed by the Feds and the St. Pete TImes’ Jeff Testerman. And it caught the attention of at least one Democrat who has been thinking about running against the Republican Hagan in 2010.
By Peter Schweitzer
PoHo contributor
You can’t mix oil and water, and you sure can’t mix politics and religion. It’s not because one is more noble than the other. It’s because their goals are at odds with each other.
“I had a politician who called me up one day and chewed me out because she was seated in the back dining room,” he recalls. The key to getting a seat in the vaunted main room is not status, it’s timing, he reveals. Agliano tells the hostesses to fill the back room and bar first. Those rooms are farther from the entrance, and it takes more time for the hostesses to go back and forth once the lunch rush hits. — Creative Loafing, 6.11.08
It was THE place to be and be seen in Tampa politics, for fundraisers and just to see who is chatting up who at lunch. Now, the Valencia Garden tradition of political intrigue is over. (And I need a new spot for a lunch date I had set for there next Tuesday.)
From the Tampa Tribune:
A padlock at the entrance to the Valencia Garden restaurant on Kennedy Boulevard today had patrons and others wondering: What is happening at the iconic local business?
Owner David Agliano confirmed late Wednesday afternoon the business is closing. He is informing his employees.
I wrote about David and how he sets (or doesn’t set) part of the city’s political agenda. The story started like this:
By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor
In a presidential proclamation issued on Monday, President Barack Obama officially recognized the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The president’s call for equality and his acknowledgment of the many contributions LGBT people have made to America’s culture, society and politics despite being culturally, socially and politically marginalized are truly moving. However, I can’t help feeling slightly ambivalent about the whole thing. Here’s why:
From the nascent Draft Jeb! movement. We can only hope the movement is limited to the folks in this photo, but knowing the state’s electorate the way I do, I doubt it.
Just in time for Marco Rubio’s announcement today that he will seek the U.S. Senate seat in 2010 from Florida comes a film that features the man widely expected to be running against him, Gov. Charlie Crist. Outrage appears to be a well told look at the hypocrisy of closeted politicians, done by director Kirby Dick.
The film opens this Friday nationwide but we have not been able to find a Tampa Bay location for it yet. Will update when/if I do.
Here is the synopsis from the Outrage website:
Academy Award nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) delivers a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to. OUTRAGE boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, details the harm they’ve inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media’s complicity in keeping their secrets.
And the long-rumored bisexual life of our governor is a topic for the film, reports Bob Norman, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times reporter who had documented several men who say they have had sex with Crist:
I’m in the new film Outrage about hypocritical gay Republicans. And no, I offer no proof that our governor is gay.
Just a lot of compelling evidence.
The Academy Award-nominated documentarian Kirby Dick — who has compiled an excellent body of work – came to my house to talk about my reporting on Jason Wetherington and Bruce Carlton Jordan, the pair of Katherine Harris campaign staffers who told numerous witnesses they had affairs with Gov. Charlie Crist. The filmmaker interviewed me and retraced some of reporting on those stories for the movie.
Gary Fineout did a pretty good job as the capital bureau reporter for the Miami Herald and other state newspapers. (I remember his work being a pain in the ass to some of my Republican legislative clients, so he must have been good.) Now that he is out of the daily paper biz, he is starting his own blog, The Fine Print.
Fineout’s first post takes apart Charlie Crist’s proposed budget. Here’s a sample:
2. School recognition grants: Despite the fact that Crist got criticized by George P. Bush last weekend, the Republican governor decided to keep intact funding for one of the key elements of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s A+ education reforms. He has set aside $206.7 million for the program that rewards schools that show learning gains based primarily on results from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. It won’t take long for Democrats, many of whom who praised Crist for his budget proposal, to start questioning why the Legislature should fund this program during a fiscal crisis. The GOP will assert that getting rid of this program will hurt teachers since much of the money winds up as bonuses.
3. Sweetener for the U.S. Sugar deal: Crist has included $5 million in his economic development funding recommendations to be used for “areas impacted by the South Florida Water Management District’s acquisition of land from the U.S. Sugar Corporation. Impacted areas include Hendry and Glades County and the communities of Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee.”
4. Doctors and Medicaid providers are winners: Probably due in no small part to the influx of federal dollars, Crist has not only recommended keeping Medicaid intact he recommended paying more to Medicaid dentists and physicians that specialize in dermatology, neurology and orthopedic surgery. Crist also recommended spending nearly $800 million to rescue the state’s Medically Needy and MEDS A/D program – which helps the disabled and elderly. Crist also recommended spending $52 million more to add 46,000 children in the KidCare program.
You can find The Fine Print here.
The state hopes to get $3.5 billion in stimulus money earmarked for education, a big help in filling Florida’s budget hole.
But the Orlando Sentinel says not so fast there.
The daily reports that a provision in the economic recovery package calls for the stimulus money to go only to those states that can support “schools for the next two years at the levels they had in the 2005-06 school year.
“But the state is below that threshold,” the paper reports. “In fact, school funding coming directly from the state is now lower than it was in the 2004-05 school year. With Florida’s budget shortfall for next year ballooning toward $4 billion, it’s not clear it could meet that requirement.”
Read the story here.
He avoided talking about Ray Sansom’s ethical problems. He has refused to have the FDLE investigate the questionable hiring or the skirting-the-Sunshine meetings. But now that Sansom has quit, Gov. Charlie Crist has an opinion:
“I think the speaker did the right thing yesterday when he resigned the position at the college and I’m sure it was difficult,” Crist said today. “But I respect his decision.”
Now THAT is political courage!
For those who just didn’t get enough of the Top 10 (actually, 11, as there was a tie for second place), here are the ones that didn’t make the cut:
John McCain forgets Secretary of State George Schultz’s name
OK, I’m cheating here, but we had a tie at No. 2:
2. (tie) The Daily Show, “Barack Obama: He completes us”
2. (tie) Ron Howard for Barack Obama
And the No. 1 political video of the year is …
1. 8 years later
Not much overlap with my list, which reaches No. 1 in tomorrow’s blog, so here is Slate’s wrap-up of the best of the year in viral political video. (Sorry, but Slate’s embed doesn’t work with our blog software for some reason.)
Here’s Nos. 3 & 4 on our countdown. Tina Fey could have comprised an entire Top 10 list with her imitation of Sarah Palin, but this was our fave, with guest Will Ferrell. The best political video of 2008 will be on this blog tomorrow, New Year’s Eve.
4. Joe the Plumber
3. SNL: Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, Will Ferrell as an endorsing President Bush
Here’s Nos. 6 & 7 on our way to the No. 1 political video of 2008, which will be revealed on New Year’s Eve. Past installments ran daily starting on Friday in this blog.
6. The Daily Show: Karl Rove on sexism in politics
5. I’m voting Republican
I started the Top 10 countdown on Friday, and the No. 7 video shows a bit of frustration between Keith Olbermann and conservative Joe Scarborough. Check back daily for the rest of the Top 10 as I unveil the No. 1 political video of 2008 on New Year’s Eve:
7. Keith Olbermann to Joe Scarborough: Get a shovel
I started the Top 10 countdown on Friday, and today’s installment bring us No. 8. Check back daily for the rest of the Top 10 as I unveil the No. 1 political video of 2008 on New Year’s Eve:
8. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now being arrested at Republican National Convention
The countdown to No. 1 begins today, as I will run 1-2 videos every day from now until New Year’s Eve.
10. The Colbert green-screen challenge: When Stephen Colbert cut loose his viewing audience to remix a John McCain speech set in front of a green curtain and ready-made for at-home video editors, this was the best one that emerged. McCain vogues
9. The Bear urges you to vote Yes on 4
The St. Pete Times is spinning local political news out of Buzz and into a blog of its own, Bay Buzz. Check it out here.
If Tampa Bay has any hope of being liveable in 50 years, after absorbing another 3.2 million people from Brooksville to south of Sarasota, then the answer may lie in a stack of yellow and red Legos sitting on 30 tables in the Tampa Convention Center.
Business and civic leaders from seven counties are taking part in Reality Check Tampa Bay, a visioning and planning session put together by the Tampa Bay Partnership. The 300 participants included elected officials from all over the greater Tampa Bay region, including the “Big Three” mayors, Pam Iorio of Tampa, Rick Baker of St. Petersburg and Frank Hibbard of Clearwater.
The exercise put eight of the leaders at a table with stacks of children’s toys and colored ribbon. They had 90 minutes to plan the next 50 years. The Legos represented people (yellow) and jobs (red) that will come to this region during the upcoming half-century. The ribbons were road corridors (orange) and transit lines (purple).
