6/29/2005

 

More blogs heard from

+ Political Bloviation has a heads-up about that hateful Fred Phleps person coming to St. Pete. Mostly posts on national politics with some Floridalia. (Thanks to Fla. Politics.)

+ Tampa Film Fan talks about all kinds of movies -- art to zombies -- as well pop culture in Tampa Bay.

+ TallyCast, "a podcast devoted to Tallahassee, Leon County and the surrounding area" started up over the weekend. Don't have a 'pod yet, but I'm intrigued by the podcast idea.

 

Public broadcasting vote

South of the Suwannee has a list of the Florida congressmen who voted for and against restoring public broadcasting funding. (So does my public radio station.)

No surprises here.

 

State Dems/Maddox finances (cont.)

Maddox blames bookkeeper for errors. Meanwhile, he has also paid $2,632 in late property taxes. And there was also the party's $10,500 fine last year for late filing of its financial report. This story doesn't look like it's going away.

Interstate4Jamming looks up the property-tax bill on-line and finds it's paid.

 

More bad polling for Harris

New U of Q Florida poll is out today. The Quinnipiacians (say that fast three times) say that Nelson's numbers look weak but not compared to Katherine Harris'.

11. If the election for United States Senator were being held today, and the candidates were Bill Nelson the Democrat and Katherine Harris the Republican, for whom would you vote?
                        Tot     Rep     Dem     Ind     Men     Wom



Nelson 50% 15% 80% 61% 48% 52%
Harris 38 72 11 27 39 37
SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 - - - - 1
WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 1 2 - 1 1 1
DK/NA 10 11 8 11 11 10

6/28/2005

 

Comments

Just back from a trip out of town. Found a lot of comments on the post "IRS vs state Dems" (6/22) you might want to take a look.

 

More Jeb presidential speculation

Newsweek runs a short piece on the Jeb's decision to seek an investigation of Michael Schiavo. It says Jeb's people were surprised by the decision and speculates that this may point to a presidential run.

What's notable is that it has only one named source -- Mac "the knife" Stipanovich. The other sources are:

(1) "one political adviser who was surprised by Bush's intervention and who asked not to be named to avoid appearing disloyal"

(2) "another who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject"

(3) "one of the confidants"

(4) "Another, who declined to be named so as not to jeopardize his relationship with Bush."

Or just a couple guys who were instructed to talk up their boss' run for president. And what are they saying that warrants such protection of their identities? That their boss is acting on deep moral principal and not political calculation.

No wonder they want to be anonymous. Nobody likes to be laughed at.

6/22/2005

 

Light going


(Courtesy of the amazing Polaroid-o-nizer)

 

Terry's running

As though there were any suspense, Christian Right Showboat Randall Terry announces he'll challenge state Sen. Jim King. (Flablog Vault of Memory links from last month: here and here.)

 

IRS vs state Dems

The Florida Democrats, an organization pretty hardened to bad news, wakes up to find its accounts frozen by the IRS. And there might be $900,000 "unaccounted for." (See Post version and Herald version.)

See conservative sites Sayfie and PEER review for links 'n' gloating.

Can Scott Maddox really stay in the race for more than a week or two after this?

6/21/2005

 

More blogs heard from

+ Florida politiX has been around since March and I've only now gotten around to mentioning it. Sometimes I just don't stay current.

+ The lawblog 13th Juror started up in May and is looking very interesting.

+ Also recently heard from the lifeblog Out in Left Field.

+ From Hot Type to Blog is a group blog featuring the familiar by-lines of some old pros who used to write for the dear departed Miami News.

 

Two primaries

This bit of old Florida political lore is far more forgotten than it should be. A St. Pete Times editorial (which I'm guessing was written by Martin Dykeman) looks at the primary election bill and asks WWLCD? What would LeRoy Collins do?

 

Weak start

Everybody is linking to stories about the Mason-Dixon poll that shows Nelson with a 17-point lead over Katherine Harris. So much for the Harris-is-a-lot-stronger-than-the-liberals-think argument.

Statewide, 44 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Nelson and just 10 percent hold an unfavorable view. In contrast, 32 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Harris, while 30 percent hold a negative opinion.

''If this was some unknown, someone without high negatives, you could make the argument that if he raises money and the campaign raises his profile, that the gap could close,'' said Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon. ``But it's hard to make that case with Katherine Harris. Voters know who she is and there are very strong negatives among a third of them.''

 

Schiavo editorial round-up

Editorials

+ The normally mild-mannered Herald editorial page reacts strongly Gov. Bus's investigation of Michael Schiavo -- Shame on Gov. Jeb Bush for reopening an investigation into the death of Terri Schiavo. The governor's request is intrusive and unnecessary. His continued personal involvement in this case is stunningly arrogant. Wow.

+ The Daytona Beach News-Journal says: That time has come for Gov. Jeb Bush in the sad conflict over the fate of Terri Schiavo, the Pinellas County woman who was taken off life support in March after a prolonged court battle.

+ St. Pete Times -- It is a callous, arrogant, defiant act by a stubborn governor who can't accept facts at odds with his own views.

+ The Sun-Sentinel says Bush's actions are wrong and that it admires him for being courageous and out-there in being wrong. Huh? -- Gov. Jeb Bush just won't let go of the Terri Schiavo case. He's deeply misguided, but even his critics have reason to admire the courage of his convictions.


+ Tampa Tribune concludes: There is no evidence that Michael was responsible for Terri's tragedy, only reckless rumors perpetuated by those who disagree with his decision to let Terri die. Now Bush has followed in that shameful tradition. He should butt out and let Terri rest in peace.


Columnists:

+ Frank Cerabino -- The governor's call for an investigation will give comfort to all those people who had widely misrepresented Schiavo's medical condition. Instead of allowing them to dwell on reality, they can now indulge themselves in a murder fantasy orchestrated by the state's chief executive, a kind of "Tallahassee CSI."

+ Mike Thomas -- This has nothing to do with the pro-life cause. It isn't about politics. The governor is abusing his power to harass a man purely out of spite. And that actually makes his actions scarier than they are crazy.

 

Blog out

The Florida Democratic Party's blog signs off.

Why? Because of the contradiction in the words "Official Blog".
Well, true enough.

(Via the redesigned Florida Politics.)

6/20/2005

 

Cannonball!

I didn't know Cannonball Adderley was from Florida. (Not a jazz-head? Well, look for the name of the alto sax player on the liner notes to Kind of Blue. Of course you own a copy.) Thanks to Interstate4jamming for pointing out this fine Lakeland Ledger feature on the Adderly brothers.

6/18/2005

 

Political prosecution (cont.)

The governor's decision to use the criminal justice system in a nakedly political manner has surprised people who thought they couldn't be surprised by Jeb Bush anymore. A St. Pete Times sees it as psychological terms: Bush really hasn't learned much at all about accepting when he is wrong and moving on.

As the Dyer case showed, though, a prosecutor can get an indictment on fairly slender grounds. Who cares if the courts throw out the whole thing later? Your victim is still made to look like criminal, has to do a perp walk for the cameras, and bear the cost of a criminal defense.

Our system may not allow political show-trials, but political show-indictments are threatening to become just another tool of the trade.

In the meantime, the move helps appease the people who were disappointed in Bush for not defying the courts. And the timing synchronizes well with the latest moves by the right-wing noise machine. The Palm Beach Post story notes:

the allegations apparently already are part of a book written by Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective, and scheduled for release this month.

An Amazon.com promotion for the book, Silent Witness, claims that Fuhrman's investigation answers questions such as "What happened on the day Terri Schiavo died? What did Michael Schiavo do when he discovered Terri unconscious? How long did he wait before calling 911?"

The promo says Fuhrman, who was discredited during the O.J. Simpson trial and pleaded no contest to perjury charges before resigning from the police department, had "complete cooperation" from the Schindlers and Terri Schiavo's siblings.
The Herald story closes by noting with the uncomfortable position this puts Attorney General Charley Crist. Crist has so far used law 'n' order issues to keep the right wing happy. Will they stay happy if he still keeps his distance from the Schiavo case?

Also:

+ William Saletan at Slate deconstructs the Schiavo videos and is creeped out by what he finds.
+ Herald columnist Jim DeFede talks with the Florida House's rightest winger, Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who says he has no doubts, regrets or qualms about the case after the autopsy reports.
+ The normally moderate Kevin Drum of Poltical Animal at the Washington Monthly finds himself incredulous at the prosecutor's investigation -- The Bush children have always been distinguished by a fiery unwillingness to back down combined with an almost bestial pursuit of revenge against anyone who has ever crossed them. They don't want to beat their opponents, they want to destroy them. This, though, simply beggars the imagination. What kind of human being would keep a vendetta like this alive at this point?

6/17/2005

 

Miller obit

Infomaniac on The Herald's Gene Mille. (Scroll down past the all the white space if you use Firefox.)

 

Political prosecution

Bush announces that he has found a prosecutor to investigate Michael Schiavo.

Remember: "witch hunt" only takes a hyphen when it's used as a compound modifier.

 

The Martinez strategy again

The Bushes seem about to do to Katherine Harris what they did to Bill McCollum last year: Recruit a different candidate with fewer negatives. The Herald says Florida House Speaker Allan Bense is being positioned to oppose Harris. The St Pete Times says both Bense and Senate President Tom Lee have been urged to run. The front-page Orlando Sentinel story also notes that the national party is not thrilled will Harris and is recruiting Bense.

Like Martinez, Bense is not much known statewide, has a bland public persona, and supports the governor in all things. Harris, however, remains a strong fundraiser. So good that she sucks money out of other Republican races. She's even a great fundraiser for the Democrats.

Less discussed is her rather remarkable inability to handle unscripted situations. (She's been booed at meetings in her own district.) She has received vigorous opposition in a district that should be a sure thing for any Republican and was not endorsed for reelection by the local paper. If she can't play well in ultraconservative Sarasota, how will she do in a statewide race?

The unstated downside to a Bense candidacy is that it could create a mess in the Legislature. Everybody remembers what Johnnie Byrd's run for Senate did to the place. (Representative commentary: "And almost everyone sees Byrd's candidacy for the U.S. Senate and his incessant fundraising as a major part of the problem." - Lucy Morgan.)

 

Schiavo autopsy aftermath

E. J. Dionne if of the Washington Post looks at the Schiavo autopsy and asks Where's the apology? He mainly concentrates on Bill Frist, but he also recalls this quote from Tom DeLay:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay didn't pretend to be a doctor, just expert enough to know what was wrong with the news reports.

"Mrs. Schiavo's condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media," DeLay said on March 20. "Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life-support."

You wonder: Will DeLay now say to the media that he's sorry? Will he acknowledge that, in the Schiavo case, he honestly didn't know what he was talking about?


The Tampa Trib's Daniel Ruth, meanwhile, goes after "Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the rest of their sweat lodge of slander engaging in common decency":

in the service of ratings points, audience share, ambition, ego and hubris, the likes of Glenn Beck, the Madame Defarge of Talk Radio, and his Posse Comitatus of prevarication were more than willing to engage in drive time vigilantism against Michael Schiavo, whose only crime was trying to honor his wife's end-of-life wishes.

Wait! Was that an apology by the likes of Glenn Beck, the Albert Speer of the Sackcloth and Ashes set, that he was wrong about - EVERYTHING?

Naw. That would require a soul.

That would require a some class.

That would require manhood.


The autopsy discredits the abuse and Terri-is-in-better-condition-than-the-media-lets-on arguments in the case. So Gov. Jeb Bush immediately sought a new attack. This time calling on prosecutors to investigate whether her husband took too long to call for help on the night she collapsed in 1990. Not that this would be a politically motivated criminal prosecution or anything.

St Pete Times version here.

This brings up something I mentioned in my column today -- A great deal of Schiavo's medical care was paid for by a million-dollar malpractice settlement. One would think the people who paid that money would have been powerfully motivated to find evidence of abuse and get themselves off the hook. The fact that they paid strongly suggests they couldn't find such evidence.

If Michael Schiavo took too long to get help wouldn't these same civil suit defendants have looked into it before paying out a million?

Abstract Appeal notes: I suppose this all harkens back to the "Michael did it" theory, which continues to grow more strange. Did Michael wait 70 minutes to call? Or, over thirteen years later, did he mix up 4:30 and 5:30?

On the Florida editorial pages:

+ Florida Today pronounced: Case closed.

+ The Miami Herald says Autopsy vindicates husband, doctors, Florida courts. We hope overreaching lawmakers learned some lessons here, although most appeared unapologetic this week. If the courts are imperfect forums for family disputes, political bodies are the absolute worst. Lawmakers have no business meddling in affairs that already have been diligently considered by the courts.

+ The S. Florida Sun-Sentinel concludes: The court made the right decision, and the legal system worked, difficult as it may be for some to accept.

+ The Tampa Tribune headline: Autopsy Puts To Rest Rumors But Won't Settle Moral Debate. The autopsy results are irrelevant to the moral argument that human life should be valued under all circumstances, a position that deserves respect. It's unfortunate that some who professed to hold that view resorted to wild, and now discredited, accusations.

And finally Abstract Appeal does its usual fine job of looking dispassionately at the case.

6/15/2005

 

fighting the drillers

The St Pete Times on Sen. Nelson threatening block the energy bill unless there's a guarantee of no oil drilling off Florida gets across some of the political drama of the proceedings and shows the usefulness of a fillibuster threat.

The Palm Beach Post account has the much of the same material delivered more matter-of-factly.

6/14/2005

 

Bottom of the pack

Survey USA does a rundown of approval/disapproval numbers of the whole US Senate. As Kos notes: Both Florida senators rank at the bottom. Nelson: 90th among the 100 senators; Martinez, 97th.

6/12/2005

 

Blog column

Adam Smith at the St. Pete Times takes note of the most prominent Florida blogs. (Via Florida Politics, which was mentioned prominently and which graciously vouches for the longevity of Flablog, which has been dedicated for to your Florida newspotting needs since Nov. 2001.)

It also raises the question: Is Sayfie a blog in the strict sense of the word?

It's very useful despite the corny layout, flashing-light GIFs, and overuse of the phrase "must read." And for a conservative site, it is not too angry at anybody. It's bloglike for being daily and from many sources, but it's not a blog in that it does not have a personal voice (or voices). It is a news roundup without much overt comment on the links listed. So no, it's not really a blog.

6/10/2005

 

Another blog heard from

Just to show Flablog is an equal-opportunity Internet source, allow us note the PEER Review, a Tallahassee-based conservative political blog.

6/08/2005

 

Voucher case

The Florida Supremes hear the school voucher case and their questions aren't easy for voucher supporters.

+ The Miami Herald account notes that instead of focusing just on the state's religious freedom amendment, the justices also wanted to know about Article IX which mandates the state maintain "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools ..."

+ The St. Pete Times story gives even more of the court questioning and suggests the court might be looking for narrow grounds for its ruling than those the DCA used.

+ The Sun-Sentinel version gives more space to the people outside the court building.

+ The Tallahassee Democrat article also focuses more on the demonstration and notes the presence of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a voucher advocacy group that, according to People for the American Way, gets it's money from the usual rightwing advocacy foundations and a sizeable grant from the No Child Left Behind Act.

+ The Palm Beach Post version gets more into the legal argument and background.

+ And my own paper, too, does a good job.

+ Fla. ACLU press release.

+ Abstract Appeal makes the plausible, if counterintuitive, case that Florida's Religious Freedom Amendment doesn't say what it seems to say.

+ PDFs of the briefs filed so far are on the very useful state Supreme Court site.

+ PDF of the 1st DCA ruling last August that found the voucher law unconstitutional.

6/07/2005

 

Blogger haiku (cont.)

The blogs are still now
Blogger won't post anything
Why do I do this?

 

Harris is in

To the surprise of nobody, Harris has announced. At least that will put an end to all those will she/won't she stories.

(Herald version here.)

When does the advertising blitz begin?

6/03/2005

 

Farkers in Fla.

Fark party in Tampa. Scroll down to the bottom about why the Sunshine State has its own label on Fark.com.

 

Sticks of Fire

Sticks of Fire has moved to a new address -- sticksoffire.com -- and is looking spiffy.