Sunday, October 30, 2011

FL Teacher Faces $1000 Fine for Registering Students to VOTE!

Nobody does voter suppression like the new Florida:

New Smyrna Beach High School Jill Cicciarelli is an excellent civics teacher who has been teaching for many years. But she is also a criminal. Her crime? Helping her students register to vote.

This wasn't a crime last year, before Rick Scott. In fact, Mrs. Cicciarelli helps her senior class EVERY year with the paperwork to preregister for the voting rolls. But she was on maternity leave in the spring when the Legislature passed a a new voter suppression law that, among other things, requires third parties to register with the state before they help sign up new voters.

Mrs. Cicciarelli is an unauthorized party. Furthermore, she waited longer than the insane new 48 hour time limit to hand in the applications.

She now is looking at a $1000 fine.

I documented all of the voter suppression tactics in this horrible GOP law in a blog post last April. The new law is the worst in the nation that somehow manages to tarnish our already poor reputation on voting rights.

For one thing, it requires likely Dem voters to receive provisional ballots (women who change their name, college students with new addresses, almost anyone who is challenged by vote caging, etc,). This is significant because the majority of provisional ballots ARE NOT COUNTED!

It forces registration of every volunteer who might want to register someone to vote. It restricts video or audio of voters at polling places (which helps teabaggers who engage in vote caging operations), and puts a ridiculous time limit on registration forms. Fines are minimum $50 per late application!

Then there's the politicizing of the supervisors of elections, cutting early voting, curbing citizen intiatives... and as you are about to see, ridiculous regulations imposed on election supervisors that try to help people register.

All in the name of "voter fraud", of which Kurt Browning, our right-wing Sec. of State, admits he can't find ONE F&*&ING INCIDENT. Interestingly, they couldn't get one GOP supervisor of elections to name one either.

In fact, they think the law sucks too.

Ann Mcfall is the REPUBLICAN Supervisor of Elections of Volusia County who was forced to report the teacher and her students to the Division of Elections for noncompliance.

She is outraged about that... and justifiably so. I urge you to read the entire article she penned in the Daytona beach paper entitled "Voter registration law is frustrating and unenforceable" :

Traditionally, as supervisor of elections, I go out of my way to avoid controversy and conflict. My job is to implement new laws and manage elections, no matter what laws or rules may change. But legislation passed in the 2011 session was, in my humble opinion, so egregious that I felt I had to bring it to the attention of all interested citizens.





You see, she can no longer just give out forms. She is forced to keep a record and report to the state the name of everyone who picks up a voter registration form from a third-party. HOW THE HELL is anyone supposed to know that since they are usually left in stacks at libraries, post offices, etc.

She is supposed to report how many are provided, how many get processed per day, the date filled out (even though the person signing it has to date it on the form anyway), etc. The goal here is obvious... to make it ridiculously cumbersome to register to vote. That, cominbed with outrageous fines, will make sure most people don't bother.

As for the teacher, Senator Bill Nelson (D) has gotten involved. He met with the teacher, and the students. He told them that this is a "direct assault on democracy." He promised the teacher and the students that would share their stories with Gov. Skeletor and ask the law be repealed next session.

(Our other Senator, Marco Rubio (teabagger), didn't bother to assist and thinks the new law is just dandy.)

Teacher in trouble after registering students to vote: MyFoxORLANDO.com



Although she faces $1000 in fines, this case has become high-profile thanks to Sen. Nelson and it is likely that this teacher will get a "warning". But Scott and his allies got their message out to the electorate: Help register people to vote, and risk getting in trouble.

They have been wildly successful with this.

The League of Women voters suspended voter registration efforts in Florida for fear of exposing volunteers to up to $1,000 in fines, and the thousands of volunteers in other nonprofits aren't risking it either.

My only hope is that those of us brave enough to register to vote and God Forbid help others to register will remember which party it was that tried to stop them.

Next year, I plan on registering as many people as I can to vote. Arrest me. I just hope my fellow fed-up Floridians will join me.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Khaddafi Killed; Rebels Support OWS



Hillary Clinton returned from Libya one day before they captured and killed the man that Ronald Reagan tried for years but was unable to touch.

A man whose brutal regime was apparently not bad enough that George W. Bush felt the need to life ALL sanctions in 2004.

No American soldier died. No treasure spent. Libya is the anti-Iraq, and shows how a GOOD American president can foster democracy.

The Arab Spring is inspiring, but now is the time for the American Autumn. When ordinary Americans rise up and say NO MORE to Wall Street abuses and their GOP enablers.

-No more taxpayer subsidies for the Biggest Oil Companies.

-No more dead peasant insurance.

-No more raiding retirement funds to pay top-level executives.

-No more GOP stripping away all consumer rights and employee protections.

Enough.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Occupy Florida

Occupy Florida


A handful of occupations are happening tomorrow (Ocala, Orlando, Daytona Beach) and some are ongoing (Gainesville, Tampa).

Join the movement!

Anita Perry Blames Obama for Her Idiot Son

Anita Perry stepped in it again. She told a crowd her spoiled son is out of work because of Obama:


Rick Perry's wife Anita said Friday that she could sympathize with the plight of the unemployed because her son was forced to resign his job to take a more active role on his father's presidential campaign.

Anita Perry blamed the Obama administration for her son having to resign his position.

"My son had to resign his job because of federal regulations that Washington has put on us," Mrs. Perry said while campaigning for her husband in South Carolina, after a voter shared the story of losing his job....


"My son lost his job because of this administration," she said a few minutes later.





You see, there is this regulation that has been on the books for some time that prevents financial backers from undue influence on a political campaign.

That's a good thing.

But this mama's boy CHOSE to leave his job at Deutche bank to take ANOTHER job working for his dad to help his sagging campaign... a new job that I might add is certain to pay him handsomely.

And the ditz says this qualifies her to sympathize with people who CANNOT get a job and are really suffering.

Seriously. The Perry family, part of that top 1% you've been hearing about, are doing the typical GOP thing and playing the victims.

This idiot kid has been living off his father's name for quite some time. At the ripe old age of 23, Griffin Perry secured a sweet job at UBS. The fact that the investment banking firm stood to make hundreds of millions through a lottery proposal the governor was pushing I'm sure had nothing to do with that. Nor the fact that UBS is where former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, whose political action committee once gave the governor $610,000, works as a vice chairman.

Somehow, I don't think Griffin is going to wind up at McDonald's or any of the Mcjobs Rick Perry is famous for creating after his dad's campaign finishes going down in flames.

So to sum up... if you are out of work and liberal, it's your OWN DAMN FAULT. If you are "out of work" and conservative... it's OBAMA.

I wonder who Anita will blame when her equally moronic husband loses?


UPDATE:

6:11 PM PT: WHOOPS!


Check out this YouTube video of Anita Perry saying her son couldn't wait to quit his job. You are going to want to go right to the 6:03 mark (trust me, you won't want to see the whole video. She is painful to listen to.)


http://www.youtube.com/...

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Rick Scott Attacks the Elderly

You would think that the large geriatric population in Florida would mean that the teabaggers would at least ensure there is proper funding and oversight for nursing homes.

And you would be wrong.

First of all, Florida nursing homes are in serious, serious trouble. Rick Scott and his GOP allies cut back funding drastically; and coupled with federal cuts we now have Florida facilities with NO way to meet payroll expenses:

But even more alarming, operators say, is the prospect of no beds available for the sickest patients, who need the highest — and most costly — levels of nursing.



But don't worry, the Florida legislature made sure to match the cuts by allowing lesser care for the patients. They were able to pass a bill that limits the number of hours of direct care. They also tried (and will try again next year) to target volunteers to make it extremely difficult to visit a facility. (Pretty soon, it will be almost as hard as registering to vote.)

Bottom line: It will be harder for quality nursing homes to remain in business... but this is great news for the greedy ones who never cared about the patient. Just how bad have things gotten?

Residents are actually dying at a rate of once a month as a result of abuse and neglect.

If you can stomach it, the Miami Herald did an expose of horrible stories of residents being tortured, starved, drugged, and brutalized.


Luckily, there was Ombudsman Brian Lee, head of the state's watchdog program. Lee had an office set up years ago with virtually no budget, and an army of unpaid volunteers. All they did was visit nursing homes and report obvious cases of filth and neglect.


He was aggressive and successful. Surveys showed 98 percent satisfaction. The program had conducted a record-high 9,000-plus investigations the previous year. It cost virutally nothing.

Naturally, Lee and his team was HATED by the nursing-home industry. Nursing home operators in December had urged Gov. Rick Scott to replace Brian Lee for being "too aggressive."

In his lawsuit, Lee said he was approached soon after Scott's election and told to either resign or be fired because he was asking for too much information.

He refused to resign, and Gov. Voldemort fired him as one of his first acts as goober.



To this day, Sick Rott cannot explain why. He told federal investigators it was "normal turnover". (Odd, since Lee was fired. But I guess lying to federal investigators comes second nature to Gov. Scott.)

The new ombudsman is Jim Crochet, appointed to the position by Charles Corley, appointed by Sick Rott. All are friendly to the industry and have so far done nothing... whcih was the plan all along.

In fact, the US Administration on Aging recently investigated and detemirned that our ombudsman program doesn't even meet the minimum standard for protectng and caring for the elderly.

You can now add seniors now to the long list of victims (children, the poor, veterans, the mentally disabled, dentists, teachers, all government employees, and as of yesterday, dwarfs, etc.) of Rick Scott and his allies. I guess it wasn't enough to just steal their money...

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Florida GOP Jobs Bill: Legalize Dwarf-Tossing! (not kidding)

Our unemployment rate is sky high at 10.7%, with some industries like construction nearly double that. We also have the highest foreclosure rate and critical infrastructure needs.

Our Teabag state legislature responded quickly: by introducing 17 bills to restrict abortion, by making the largest cuts in education and health care in state history, and by making voter registration nearly impossible.

Naturally, Floridians were outraged. But don't worry, it took them awhile but they have a jobless plan:


Jobless dwarfs should have the option of being flung around a barroom for cash rather than standing in the unemployment line, according to one Florida state lawmaker.

Representative Ritch Workman, a Melbourne Republican, has introduced a bill to undo a ban on “dwarf-tossing”... he said it may put a few people to work in a state where unemployment is 1.6 percentage points above the national average.


Dear Lord I hate these people.

Our criminal governor was outraged... just kidding. His spokesman said he needed to "review the legislation" and therfore claimed it "wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment.”


WTF??

It was banned decades ago for obvious reasons:

It is dangerous.

It is dehumanizing.

What the hell do you have to "review" governor?

Well, I have a few things to "review":




Rick Scott made news this week for lying about his pledge to produce 700,000 jobs. (See the video below, he openly contradicts himself).

But unless 700,000 little people come to this state willing to degrade themselves... our teabag overlords are out of ideas.

: