Posts in the category Clueless Crist
Coincidentally enough, Florida is the state with both the highest rate of identity theft, and with a governor suffering through the most prolonged identity crisis in recent political history.
Charlie Crist’s “Man In The Mirror” confusion was in full view during the 2010 State of the State speech, when he launched his third 180-degree turn since becoming governor in 2006 - this time trying desperately to swing back towards what was a winning identity for him back then. That Crist was posing as a Republican centrist eager to appeal to moderates of all affiliations. He was going to help protect the environment, help Floridians with housing and health care, things that sounded downright…Democratic. But he didn’t help with any of that, focusing instead on building his campaign war chest and appeasing the entrenched special interests that dominate Florida's economic and political landscapes. Read More » Public Policy Polling's latest poll on the GOP Senate Primary:
Rubio now leads Crist 60-28, including a staggering 71-17 lead with conservatives. Crist has a 49-36 advantage with party moderates, but they account for just 31% of likely primary voters compared to 65% who describe themselves as conservative. Granted, the primary isn't until August 24th, but I just don't see how it's possible for Crist to pull this one out. Traditionally, if an opponent is below 50%, it's possible to for them to be beat. With Rubio at a commanding 60%, Crist is done, finished, caput. The only way Crist could remain an elected official after November is if he decides to drop out and run for reelection as Governor or if he runs as an independent for Senate. There's always dog catcher, too. Our Editorial Cartoon of the Week feature is part of Progress Florida's popular FREE Daily Clips service:
Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 3-5-10 Bilked: another story from South Florida For Florida, A Time for Leadership Lying to Our Kids Our Editorial Cartoon of the Week feature is part of Progress Florida's popular FREE Daily Clips service:
Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 2-26-10 Is Crist laying the groundwork for an independent bid? By Juan Saaa Progress Florida Florida as a whole has seen a increased upwelling in the area of immigration reform lately, mostly in part from youth activists who have had enough of living in the shadows and are mobilizing all across the state to make a push to move the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, otherwise known as the DREAM Act.Ray Sansom Resigns to Avoid Ethics Hearing By Beach Blogger Pensacola Beach Blog Northwest Florida state representative Ray Sansom (R-Ft. Walton Beach) resigned his seat at 8 pm last night rather than proceed with the state ethics hearing he had requested.  Why Florida's ethics laws need an upgrade! By Ed Gamble, Florida Times-Union Related editorial: State ethics: the hall of shame BONUS CARTOONS  By Jeff Parker, Florida Today  By Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 2-19-10 Note to Florida Voters: throw out the vultures and speculators By R.S. Pienta Leave a Comment A teacher I met via Facebook recently vented her frustration about the No Child Left Behind policy and how it is implemented via rules about FCAT in the state of Florida.  By Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal BONUS CARTOON  By Andy Marlette, Pensacola News Journal Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 2-12-10 I Suspect This Is Where We're Going By Gimleteye Eye on Miami In a 2 PM press conference, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson will announce that she will not run for re-election.  By Jim Morin, Miami Herald BONUS CARTOON  By Jeff Parker, Florida Today Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for the week ending 1-22-10 What's Crist to do (besides dropping out and endorsing Kendrick Meek)? By Geniusofdespair Eye on Miami The only person who signed the Corporate papers (filed January 21st) for this 501c4 is Richard E. Coates, a Tallahassee lobbyist, who also happens to have as a client Barney Bishop's "Associated Industries of Florida".CBS Tainting Super Bowl Broadcast By Daniel Tilson Progress Florida In rolling out what they claim is a new policy to begin broadcasting "approved" paid advocacy group advertisements, the CBS TV network is clearly taking the sensitive, low-key high road - airing the first such spot during Super Bowl 44, being played Sunday in our South Florida backyard, with a few additional folks tuning in from around the globe.Six amendments make the ballot By Bill Newton FCAN Blog It will be another busy year for voters. The Legislature wants us to give up public campaign finance, and we have a chance to make Florida's election districts more fair and eliminate gerrymandering.  By Jeff Parker, Florida Today BONUS CARTOON  By Jim Morin, Miami Herald I've three broken teeth, a pain in the neck and no interest in dying, so even though I wrote poorly when I'm this stressed, today was the day to ask Sen. Lemieux to leave me alone, at length, and then post the request here so that his specious rhetoric never hits my Inbox again. Using his website contact form, I sent the following:
"Sir, you are in Congress by the combined whims of former Sen. Martinez and Gov. Crist; your prior position made you aware that Martinez was complacent with Crist being a Paper Tiger, providing a projected image of toughness on crime via affixing his signature to death warrants while deliberately overlooking public misconduct that resulted in wrongful convictions in Brevard, Polk and other counties. The knowledge that Crist has no intention of addressing scores of clouded convictions made it incumbent upon you to ask the FBI to investigate the public corruption. The failure to do so puts you in league with prosecutors who coached jailhouse informants to credibly provide false testimony. My interest in you is therefore limited to your being prosecuted along with the other villains that continue to trample the likes of James Bain, Juan Melendez, Wilton Dedge, William Dillon and Juan Ramos while allowing rapists and murderers to find additional victims. Because of my very limited [interest] in you, I unsubscribed to the first Newsletter I received from you and every one since, documenting the last five times with pdf copies. I will save a copy of this submission for use in a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus to request that the Supreme Court compel the FBI to adhere to their mandate to address public corruption that affected trial and election outcomes. As you likely know from you association with Crist, I have "standing" and your persistence in resubscribing me each time I unsubscribe will let me speak directly to your behaviors in the Petition. Your closeness to Crist that likely acquainted you with my years of request for consequences for the culpable would also have made you aware of my disabilities. Many persons with epilepsy have stress-engendered seizures; I'm one such person. My medication is proving effective in preventing all but nocturnal seizures, which put me at risk of dying in my sleep due to my heart defect. These nocturnal seizures are often apparent upon awakening by noting another broken tooth, neck and back pain and more difficulty with my memory than the medication causes. I have many other medical conditions aside from epilepsy. I will use this analogy in the Petition - deliberately slipping a regular Coke to a person with volatile diabetes is attempted homicide, so is directing stress at a person with volatile epilepsy. I ask that you not resubscribe me to your newsletter yet again to lessen the likelihood that another communication will cause me another broken tooth or worse. In evaluating your choices hereinafter, it would likely do you well to recall that the FBI investigated dogfighting rings in several states last year while ignoring roughly 5,000 clouded criminal investigations tainted by debunked bullet-matching and DNA-discredited dog handlers. They put man's best friend ahead of men; not even the five most disingenuous Justices ever seated can spin their way around that simple statement of fact. The foreign press will have a field day, making it impossible for even Fox not to get on board. Don't write to me of a unsubscribe glitch; in the absence of a copy of your letter to FBI Director Mueller asking that he put men ahead of dogs this year, all that a reasonable person could construe from the communication is that your behaviors are self-serving, constituents be damned." The judge that initially tried Tommy Zeigler 35 years ago had a prior contentious relationship with him. In states that give a damn about justice, Tommy would have been granted a new trial on his first appeal.
Scripps Treasure Coast Palm publications granted me an opportunity to appear before their Board and pitch my case to have one of their reporters accept my research on wrongful convictions and do a story. They didn't find the horror and heartbreak compelling. They still don't. Below is the second Press Release I've sent them about Tommy; it'll probably be deleted, too. From: Susan Chandler Date: January 26, 2010 12:24:52 PM EST To: Larry Reisman , Ken Ward Subject: Fwd: Integrity of Judge in Death Row Case Compromised Dear Mr. Reisman and Mr. Ward: Please forward Ray McEachern's press release to the News Editor along with the following: In considering the Release's newsworthiness: James Bain ringing the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Martin Luther King Day reminded the nation that Florida indeed will persecute innocents for as long as 35 years; Zeigler's time behind bars isn't an indication of guilt. Bain's exoneration was not Polk's first - Juan Melendez is now working to help others and is aware of Leo Schofield's likely innocence. Polk's attempted, nearly successfully, to get Gov. Crist to execute Paul Beasley Johnson before the Supreme Court could discover the rampant prosecutorial misconduct in his case. Johnson's likely guilt made the misconduct all the more inexcusable. Gary Bennett's Brevard case in now in Lawson Lamar's unclean hands via Crist's Execute Order. Unless there was a John Preston-tainted conviction resulting in an execution in every Florida county, of itself the Order substantiates Crist's, Lamar's and Norm Wolfinger's moral bankruptcy in light of Linroy Bottoson's Orange County Preston-tainted conviction and subsequent execution. There appears to have been untoward cooperation between Orange and Brevard in locating "new witness" Sandra Weeks, who was set to testify against now exonerated Bill Dillon until Wolfinger was asked to confirm or deny that Weeks was a felon likely in need of prosecutorial favors, like James E. Gilmore, Clarence Zacke and Roger Dale Chapman. There appears to have been untoward cooperation between the DOC and Brevard in securing yet another early release for Chapman and discrepancies in Chapman's testimony at Dillon's exoneration compensation hearing that he would not have been available to offer without early release. Chapman's release without parole supervision allows the DOC to lawfully deny requests for information on his release. Brevard Sheriff Parker seems intent on keeping the public from knowing that Pauline Scandale's 1988 Canova Beach homicide was strikingly similar to the 1981 Canova Beach homicide Dillon was framed for. Mrs. Scandale was an 82-year-old widowed kindergarten teacher who likely deserved to be able to pass peacefully in her sleep. She died in terror, enduring blows that crushed her skull, just like James Dvorak died seven years earlier. John Preston had been discredited by Geraldo Rivera on ABC's "20/20" four years prior to Mrs. Scandale's murder; every investigation Preston participated in nationwide, including Dillon's, should have been reopened. John Walsh was provided confirmation that Ottis Toole was indeed his son Adam's slayer within a week of charges being dropped against Dillon. Adam was killed in the same timeframe as Dvorak and was spotted in Brevard with Toole; you know where Adam's head was found. Our government is so broken that activists free innocents and incidentally find actual perpetrators while public servants who are being paid to protect rights and liberties obstruct rather than assist, serving only themselves. Mrs. Scandale's murder was one of two within a week of an elderly woman home alone in Brevard. The second woman is not on the Sheriff's Unsolved Homicides webpage, which may be only a tip-off to another frame-up. Taxpayers paid for faux criminal investigations that incarcerated the wrong men for decades while the guilty found new victims, with Jeff Abramowski's Brevard frame-up proving that this century is no different than the prior; it's newsworthy that the media hasn't found it newsworthy. Thank you. Regards, Susan Chandler 3008 N 25th St Ft Pierce, FL 34946 772-466-9874 For Release Monday, January 25, 2010 Integrity of Judge in Death Row Case Compromised by Failure to Disclose Spouse is State Employee Contact: Ray McEachern, 813-294-6772 The Code of Judicial Conduct sternly warns judges not to allow even the "appearance of impropriety." In apparent disregard of this clear rule, Judge Reginald Whitehead of the Ninth Judicial Circuit assumed responsibility for the case of 33 year death row inmate William Thomas Zeigler in 2003 after another judge had authorized DNA testing in 2001. Zeigler’s attorneys were so confident that the results of the testing would prove his complete innocence that they immediately moved to have his sentence vacated. In 2004, Judge Whitehead, who, for unknown reasons, took over the case from Judge Grincewicz who had ordered the testing, denied Zeigler’s demand for a new trial. Five years later, Zeigler’s pro bono New York attorneys asked the court to test the DNA of the stains which were not tested in 2001. Judge Whitehead had ruled before the 2004 hearing that only evidence which had been a part of the trial record in 1976 would be allowed to be considered, effectively blocking Zeigler from proffering other exculpatory evidence which the state had withheld from defense at trial. The untested stains had not been a part of the trial in 1976, yet Whitehead allowed the state to use them to imply that the untested stains might prove Zeigler’s guilt. The new petition was assigned originally to Judge F. Rand Wallis, but, inexplicably, was taken over by Judge Whitehead. In a letter faxed to Chief Judge Belvin Perry, Jr., Ray McEachern, Citizen Advocate for Tommy Zeigler, asked that the case be re-assigned to a different judge. In the letter, McEachern said that he verified with Chief Assistant State Attorney William Vose that ASA Esther Marie Whitehead was in fact the spouse of Judge Reginald Whitehead and that she was an employee of the state in 2004 when Judge Whitehead denied Zeigler’s petition for a new trial. In the letter McEachern states that the "integrity of the court has already been compromised by Judge Whitehead’s failure to disclose a relationship that can be exploited to the advantage of the state." An online petition to Florida Governor Charles Crist, which has garnered 400 names, points out that the 1976 trial judge, Maurice Paul, now a federal judge, refused to step aside even though he had been an opposing character witness to Zeigler in a racially charged trial four months before the murders for which Zeigler was convicted. Zeigler was shot in the abdomen during those murders but survived to call police. Zeigler was charged with the murders three days later while he was in hospital intensive care. For more information see www.freetommyz.com . First things first: Unlike 24 other states across America that limit “independent” organizational advertising and media spending in support of, or in opposition to political candidates’ and issues advocacy campaigns at the state level - note that Florida has no limits on such spending.
So the Supreme Court ruling handed down in a contentious 5-4 vote (Thank Bush for the conservative majority), an ideologically extremist vote overturning long-standing limits on special interest campaign spending on U.S. congressional and presidential campaigns, will not have any impact on Florida’s 2010 state-level campaigns. That’s the “good” news. The bad news is, the bottomless pit of special interest money that has been used so many times in Florida to defeat local candidates and state initiatives that dare tamper with freewheeling corporate profits and business practices at the local and state levels (see Florida’s insurance, real estate development, and financial industries, for starters) has now been unleashed for use on federal campaigns as well. Read More » Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for week ending 1-15-10 Thinking about Kendrick Meek, the Myth of Sisyphus and whether Dan Gelber regrets dropping out of the US Senate race By Steve Schale Steve Schale This is the first of many posts I am going to write about the state of the battlefield in Florida and the forward trajectory of the state's politics.Rigged-bid county government By Beach Blogger Pensacola Beach Blog It's bad enough that promises Escambia County Government made to beach residents decades ago are intentionally broken by county commissioners. Our Editorial Cartoon of the Week feature is part of Progress Florida's popular FREE Daily Clips service:
BONUS CARTOON Progress Florida's Best of the Blogs for week ending 1-8-10 More on Crist's base (or lack thereof) By Peter Schorsch St. Petersblog 2.0 Launching a new online effort called "53 Fixes", Rep. Rick Kriseman demonstrates again why he is one of Florida's leading Democrats.2010 Legislature: More of the Stuff That Doesn't Work By Ray Seaman Progress Florida Senator Mike Haridpolos and Representative Dean Cannon aren't Senate President and House Speaker yet, but they're already set to do a bang up job during this year's legislative session. Florida leads the nation in international migration Our Editorial Cartoon of the Week feature is part of Progress Florida's popular FREE Daily Clips service:
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