(Katy Bar The Door, As Thanksgiving 2003 Approaches)
Days of reckoning must be near, a terrible prospect for the present and
former Bush faithful. The key word in the previous sentence is former.
Yes, not all of those who bought the state- and federal-level claptrap
of the brothers Bush and that of the warmongers and profiteers who
surround them, continue to do so. Many of them, devastated by their
stocks and mutual fund losses must have turned to their gods for pure
thoughts before their reason kicked in and drove them from the houses of
the money changers.
Worse than the shell game, where hawkers, shills and marks joined the
fun at full tilt, until the marks discovered they had been bilked,
hustled, robbed by futures markets and the thieves that drove them out.
Then bully boy “Dubya” rode in on the Enron oil horse that bought him
trailed by a fish hair by Bechtel, Boeing, Anderson, Lockheed, KPMG,
etc., racing for the apocalypse . . . all, mind you, backed by the
national and international lending institutions.
We may suppose the deserters had a revelation of sorts, this one from
their mind’s eye and not the hawkers’ spiels. If all this weren’t so
tragic, receiving hopelessness instead of promises, even those most
broken might pity the poor attempts by these thieves to polish their
images through the television hawkers of hokey renewed promises, the
shills, and the attempted portrayal of their respectability by the “We
earn it” advertisements by the thieves and money lenders.
Whoa! We had been warned that Dubya had been underrated before. His
appointment by a Supreme Court majority of the same leanings showed
those stalwarts were among those who most underrated him. Surely they
knew (?) Cheney, Bush, Rummy, Rove, and, yes, JEB plotted two years
before the mysteriously able Saudi non-pilots could have commandeer
airliners and crashed into the World Trade Center buildings, to invade
Iraq, U.N. non-aggression treaty be damned. Maybe they didn’t know.
Maybe they were surprised and mortally disappointed by their roles in
the catastrophes.
Maybe the radical conservatives of the Supreme Court are equally
mortified and disappointed by provisions in the Patriot Act, also
credited to the Twin Towers disaster, which have cut into citizens’
rights that have held this nation together since its inception. And,
they have reason. Issues of humanity are involved, after all and the
Constitutional guarantee of the pursuit of happiness in all its
diversity.
Choose Life! That drivers’ tag slogan approved in JEB’s “My” Florida
epitomizes the state and national Bush posture on abortion. If Katy
wasn’t explicit enough in earlier writings, sorry, you can’t win ‘em
all; even some sometimes.
But, as intimated above’ these chickens are coming home to roost, as
many of them who have lost their livelihoods in the constricted job
market, as many who have lost their pensions, as many who have had their
lives restricted, millions of them for sure.
It’s amazing to hear of Dubya whining over the “hate,” as he perceives
any negative comment about his administration, seems unable to
understand how those afflicted by his actions and his association by the
very crooks that helped him get his appointment could see a connection.
“Giddy-Up Haliburton, we’re still racin’ for dollars ye know!”
The education governor, hah!
By now it is clear that JEB is not “The Education Governor.” We read of
the failed policies and the poor funding of his tenure. But, Katy wishes
to suggest a possibility that he and Bro Dubya cut a deal to ensure
JEB’s election to a second term. The suggestions below are pure fantasy,
but the activities involved are another threat to
Bush-the-elder’s reelection prospects. He desperately needs the Florida
electoral college votes, but won’t get them if these ties could be
bound.
Months ago, years now perhaps, Katy bewailed the way things were going
among the opposition leading up to JEB’s second run for governor. “Who
are you labor unions?” she cried, “Who are you Democrats?”
Well, prominent and powerful among them was Pat Tornillo, Miami and
Tallahassee resident, and head of the United Teachers of Dade until he
went on leave upon the announcement that he had pleaded guilty “to
charging $650,000 in luxury cruises, first-class vacations and other
luxuries to union accounts.” (AP, August 26, 2003) This amazing article
about the man described as “leader of the Southeast’s largest labor
union” and “who has been a political force in Florida for three decades”
also “pleaded guilty to mail fraud and filing false tax returns“ in
exchange for a reduced two years” sentence.
The articles go on to enumerate Mr. Tornillo’s positive accomplishments
as “the single most powerful labor leader Florida has ever had” as
described by a former spokesman for the late Gov. Lawton Chiles.
Now we know whose those labor unions were and who those “Democrats” were
who picked out an unknown mid-state lawyer as the nominee to run against
Bush, abandoning the campaign of the much better known and more
political savvy Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General during the Clinton
administration.
Closer to today, the AP editor Catherine Wilson of Miami had a followup
Tornillo story in which she wrote: Tornillo “may have saved his best
dealmaking for himself.” Ms. Wilson’s newest piece was the story of how
Tornillo negotiated the plea deal with federal prosecutors days before
the American Federation of Teachers, who have been advising the Dade
union since Tornillo left, announced audit results that showed Tornillo
had taken $2.5 million; not the $650,000 set amount, he negotiated in
the plea deal with federal prosecutors.
Wilson quotes Damaris Daugherty, founder of the Teachers Rights Advocacy
coalition as saying: “The teachers were sold up the river on this one.
This kind of gets my blood boiling.”
All above is verifiable history, sad as it is. Now, let’s speculate.
Let’s speculate that a deal was cut but the stakes were much, much
greater than Mr. Daugherty knows. Again, as it was in the previous two
Bush political victories, the boys are genetically connected in politics
as they are biologically. And, still speculating, their cutthroat use of
all the power they can command might have resulted finally in the deal
to dump Janet Reno.
Yes, Mr. Daugherty, there were and are much bigger stakes in this game.
Katy says, if you haven’t barred your doors by now, things definitely
could get worse.
top
It was too sad to read through at first sitting, and too long. I'd
had my own brush with DCF when the Bone-Headed Legislature of the time
decided to implement privatization of the State Child Welfare System.
A young professional Systems Planning, Implementation, Measurement, and
Corrective Actions Consultant, evaluator for short, gave a summary of
his program year-end evaluation report on the Pilot Private Child
Welfare Demonstration Project. Evaluators are that thoruough.
As I recall, the findings included low performances in general,
excepting the Sarasota Project--which in retrospect might have
politically pushed the whole Pilot--even for the benighted Boy's Ranch
Project, which would not be required to perform all the DCF program
requirements, but was granted a nice contract anyway.
Guess what? You guessed it: the Bone-Heads, hadn't waited the
assessment/evaluation, but had voted to privatize statewide months
before any assessment could have taken place.
Guess what again? There was no Kathleen Kearney in the DCF
picture. She didn't come up with the cockamamie idea. She
didn't do anything but subsequently accept JEB's appointment as DCF
Secretary.
So, despite my delight in the link to the child care protection
organization's anniversary review of the sad situation afflicting
troubled poor children in Florida, let's keep our eyes on the JEB
element involved.
Is the man absolutely unprincipled, except for his fixation on the
bottom line, that he is sacrificing children at the feet of mammon?
A postscript: And, guess what? The Pilot Project contractors were
to have contribute toward the cost of having the evaluation conducted.
Not a cent could they spare. So, the pre-Kearney DCF paid for it.
Pretty brave of someone in the agency hierarchy, but, maybe whoever s/he
was couldn't know then how really petty JEB
"Stick-In-Their-Eye" Bush would prove to be.
WHO ARE YOU DEMOCRATS? Did You Forget November 2000?
Katy Bar The Door 02/06/02
I heard on NPR today (02/06/02) that President Dubya has recently turned to pay a bit of attention to his political fortunes; that he had attended some political occasions in support of JEB, our governor. That got me thinking about Democrat politics and how those dodos are about to muff a chance to get JEBBIE out of our state.
This stuff ain't genome research. Hasn't Katy explained before that rejecting "run- government-like-a-business" JEB this year will spell the doom of Dub's second try. Well, don't you know that Dub knows that? He's not hanging out in the Sunshine State just to help Brother Bush, ol' Dub ain't that dumb. He's running like a bandit right now, today, for reelection. Craziest thing is that there's a lot of gullible souls out there, and they're going to believe what they want to believe.
As for me, I always say: the family that hangs together . . . Don't worry too much about the Bushies, though, if anybody knows how to slink into a deal going bad and come out winners, it's our Bushies. Pity that their gains are somehow sidewise siphoned from the public trough.
We Can't Afford These Boys
Read on The Drudge Report today that some scoundrel has speculated that Dubya and his gang had been so fond of the quids from the formerly BIG E that maybe they had a hand in providing some deregulation quos that, among other nasty things, allowed the persuasive E to gouge millions of California electricity customers at 100 times normal rates for two months. Another commentator took the first one to task and lambasted him for such a suggestion. Katy also has suggested the most likely topics of Cheney's meetings with E and Arthur A were money and politics in light of the pending collapse. I can picture cartoons from an earlier time; the ones depicting fat cat uglies in banker's clothing grabbing large bags cinched at the top and stamped with a dollar sign on the side. No, we can't afford them.
"Whasamatter Wiju Grl?"
Also today, the St. Petersburg Times tells us JEBBIE was finally flushed back into the glare of sunlight. As Gomer used to say: Suprahze! Suprahze! Ol' Chubby Cheeks (He been eatin' too many ribs?), yep, our JEBBIE is going against Good Ol' John McKay on tax reform. The senator's reaction reminded me of Gema Hernandez's op ed piece a day or so after JEB canned her as head of the Department of Elder Affairs. Astonishment's the word. I think he was quoted somewhere as calling it "mind boggling." How in the world can he look right at me in the morning, take my hand and smile in agreement with every word I say, and have a letter to me that night expressing precisely the opposite?
Yes, how? We had a president suffer the public indignity and humiliation of impeachment for lying about a potentially embarrassing personal affair in violation of his oath. Yet, those members of the harassing mob that went for Clinton seems loath to call this Bush kettle black for betraying the trust of the people.
Yeah, 'n' I can't imagine JEB, who's been known to get crabby, likes the play time local public radio gave the teacher's union to rant their grievances, complete with call-and-response which resulted in catcalls and laughter from the outdoor audience. And, over and over . . . all day long it played. "Whasamatter Wiju Girl?"
"The Golden Leash." I ran across that expression in a belated read of Tom Wolf's A Man In Full, and, without reciting any meaning to you, doesn't the jist of it lead you to an uneasy recognition? It's like Golum and the ring. Too bad, though, Golum used to be a regular kind of Hobbit, you see, but lust for the ring of power made him a soulless slave. "My Pretty," he called the ring.
So, Who are you Democrats? Did You Forget November 2000?
I understand the party leadership is in support of McBride. Mr. McBride, was reported to be a former leader of the largest law firm in the state. Except for the fact that he dresses well and has nice hair and even could be considered attractive by some females, and the fact that he is a man, what is he about?
Now I read that some of the unions have fallen into line by formerly endorsing Mr. McBride. Again, who are you Democrats? Do you even want to win? ? Let's see some fire!
Are you Lawton Chiles, Buddy McKay Democrats? Bob Grahamites? Ruben Askewettes? Who are you? You labor unions, what are you doing? What so impresses you about Mr. McBride that you informally or informally endorse his candidacy? You'd better do a better sales job or you will suffer all but a mortal blow. Did you miss all the chicanery this bunch used to take control of the legislature then the governorship? Did you forget November 2000? Are you going to stick with your clubbish, stodgy calculations of whom to support?
You must come to your senses and realize what a great candidate Florida has in Janet Reno. Nope, never met the woman. Didn't you see the wacko members of Congress crash against her calm rock of conviction time and again? Didn't you get the impression that she was loyal to the cause, but even with her loyalty she sought to follow the law? Do you hear her at this phase of her campaign? Heard any BS? Disbelieve anything she says? You think she has baggage. I say she should be proud to have that ravenous mob as her enemies.
As for Mr. McBride, while I don't doubt some of ways JEB runs our business could come to require legal representation, let's just thank Mr. McBride for deciding not to be Janet Reno's Lieutenant Governor running mate, and wish him another time in history. We must dump the Bushies.
Or it's: Katy Bar The Door
Ahem. Let me begin by saying how embarrassed I am for having muffed a few details in lining up and shooting down a few of the villains in the political farces that characterize the current political climate in Tallahassee. And, I can ASSURA y' all that if I'da hoped my foibles could have had any affect whatsoever on the decision of John Anderson, a gee whiz kinda pro (as described in the Tallahassee Democrat on Friday), $200,000-a-year sorta public/private servant with the $2,000,000 partyin' and travelin' slush fund that had a hinky smell to it, chief executive officer of Enterprise Florida Inc., well, I ASSURA y' all, I'da been much more elaborately in error.
Therefore, I apologize.
Recommend readin' the real facts article from the Democrat: Enterprise Florida Chief Says He'll
Retire, and thank the puppy poop catcher for publishing it.
Then, Whaddya Know . . .
Well, remember how my two-part tirade caused me to harp on and on about the acronym plague a' threatenin' our GOV JEB? I recall mentioning OPPAGA and SAG and hanging the discovery of . . . . well, I got that almost totally wrong. AH GEE
I assume the good, kind hosts of this site will continue to post the miserable flops so that I may receive the public humiliation that I deserve.
Then, whaddya know, but that the Democrat published another doozie on Saturday, heaping it on, you know. On Saturday they bannered at the top of Page 1, local section:
Agency for disabled in peril
Hey, I've already given my opinion of my goofs. But, it's the content of the article you need to be sure to mark; not my mess.
This "Agency for disabled" turns out to be the old Vocational Rehabilitation Program. Yep, it has been difficult to follow the stories about the scandalous conduct of the program, the irresponsible waste of public tax funds, and the reduced services to some of neediest citizens in the state, the complete ethical foul up that some might describe as scandalous (Tho Not Nanny Bill Cotterell of the Democrat. See "Bought and Paid For.")
Again, as sorry as I am, I confess to having gained a little positive energy in performing my 'fessing up. Great crow, I say. And, any time we can catch a smile during the farces, what a classic form of entertainment, even when performed as art by better actors.
Katy's got to go ... Keep your eyes peeled, and
. . . Katy Bar The Door, 2/2/002
Katy Bar the Door 10/27/01
Poor Gema Hernandez, somewhere along the line she must have had a
-perceptual lapse if we are to believe her "Shocked!
Shocked!!" op-ed
piece in today’s Pet Poop Catcher.
It seems Dr. Hernandez, former head of the Florida agency that
administers critical services to the elderly, (Dr.’s o.k. now that
she’s back in academia sheltering at FSU) . . . it seems she
belatedly discovered that the bidness of politics is bidness, and
that all the tripe that is spewed by the poseurs, our elected
officials and their lackeys, has actually less substance than heifer
dust, and worse odor. Yes, Katy welcomes Dr. Hernandez to the
opportunity for a healthy dose of cynicism as a tool for detecting
that smell.
Not A Matter of Style
Poor Dr. Hernandez. If you’ve never seen her in action think
bulldozer. If you believe the difficulties in dealing with her
autocratic style are exaggerated, don’t.
Withal, however, her "my way or highway" brand of troop
drill isn’t so much different from the military-style of running
the state emergency management office. JEB was prating a day or so
ago about how all state government operations should be run the way
emergency management is run, i.e., that everything is an emergency.
Hey, one would think that a serious-minded, authoritarian woman,
would fit right in.
(Notice how JEB also majorly favors the cops and correctional
officer paramilitary units, not including environmental protection
or land management enforcers. What’s with that? Rightwing-crazy
paranoia? A serious inferiority complex in the shadow of the
emancipator of Iraq? Too tall for his shoe size? The sense that
public service should be conducted by servants like those his family’s
used to bossing around, humming softly as they so efficiently
catered to the imperial household needs? Cowboy guns ‘n holsters
for his fourth birthday? Poppy, Poppy! Mommy, Mommy?)
Nope, JEB gave Dr. Hernandez the ax, not because of her style,
but because of complaints when she tried to bring accountability to
the way well-placed elderly program contractors dish the public
dollars handed over to them. Gema wanted to have more agency
oversight for the elder services programs, more efficiency in use of
the bucks, and more/better services to those in need of the
services. Poor Gema. Poor elder Floridians who desperately need
help.
Elder Services Staff Rebuffed
The few experienced staffers who spoke up probably got their ears
boxed and worse for trying to explain the way things really are in
the government agency management of social service programs. Others,
those more concerned about the sensitivity of their ears, educated
her by stepping back and watching as she committed appointed-leader
suicide by crossing the boss, publicly.
Professionals in social service agencies usually have good cause
for advocating solid, demonstrable service delivery, sensing that
public expectations ordinarily favor that course. Their success at
doing so is chancy at best with a ravenous political structure that
keeps Florida among the very lowest states in funding (read that:
staffing) critical services for its neediest residents. A Newt
Gingrich, right-wing shift due to the decades of damning all
government and those who earn their livings in tax-paid programs has
been much more damaging to the public good than some might realize.
Katy preached this sermon more directly in "RAZING
TALLAHASSEE" way back in April, warning that politics is big
business, that JEBBIE has a propensity for lying, and that he hangs
with crooks. Plus, the Bushes’ items posted on this site would
have explained to her about how politicians can and will arrange to
profit monetarily at taxpayers’ expense, JEB, his father and his
brother DUB serving as particularly good examples. But, Dr.
Hernandez didn’t need Katy’s advice or other published reports
any more than she heeded advice of her professional staff.
The Light of Revelation
Now, Gema has discovered all this for herself. Now she seems to
believe there are nothing but lies emanating from the JEBBIE
administration, that there is not one iota of principle involved in
any utterance by any public official.
Now she warns us that tax revenues are being squandered for the
profit and convenience of the contractors! (Any kickbacks? Naw, all
these upstanding attorney legislators give freely of their
$500-an-hour time to make sure someone else makes some easy money,
don’t they? And how do you feel about your Second Amendment
Rights? "CHOOSE LIFE!" License tags? Concrete on the
Ichnetucknee? The Rodman Dam? The snails pace of dealing with the
ecological disaster of Everglades? Robbing the tobacco settlement
accounts for filling in where GOP tax breaks have been removed from
the backs of wealthy market players? Our attorney legislators have
very definite feeling$$$ about all those things.)
Well, good for you Dr. Hernandez! Now that you’ve caught up,
soften that imperiously righteous style, but do rage on! We need
your fire and brilliance. Be aware that your crusade too will face a
cynical audience. The beleaguered public, however, remains hopeful
of finding honesty among all the greed and hypocrisy tainting the
political arena.
Elect Janet Reno!
Get in there, too, and support Janet Reno. Martin Dyckman’s
advice in a recent St. Petersburg Times commentary to the contrary,
and a teachers’ union poll that has JEB leading her by more than
two-to-one, Katy believes Janet doesn’t even have to campaign to
win this one in the general election. These "planet Mongo"
(thanks Martin) mutts, through their pronouncements and legislative
acts, are busily gnawing down their own cover, and Janet will be the
"Anyone But JEB," winner next November.
And, then it’ll be Katy Bar The Door!
(Top)
Thank you Mr. Hiaasen. Florida needed that: (Bush-Reno
fight could really get ugly)
Carl Hiaasen, humorist constantly biting at the backsides of
pompous-assed politicians and "I did it my way"
developer-thieves in South Florida, and very popular columnist for the
Miami Herald, is the first non-Democrat political hack to join Katy in
speculating on the political strength of Janet Reno in the hot race
for governor of Florida.
Mr. Hiaasen got it right in his September 5th
commentary in the Herald. Ms. Reno is the class of the entire field,
Democrat or Republican. As a voter, I long since have satisfied myself
about her being an honorable public servant. I mean, this staunch
interpreter and advocate of justice; this unpretentious, steadfast,
soldier for just treatment; this woman, seemingly devoid of the
poisonous arrogance that drives some politicians even to threaten the
Constitution that governs us all—who would you trust more in the
highest leadership position in the state? Her wacko detractors, such
as Bob Barr of Georgia? Louis Freeh lately of the FBI? The nutso
perpetrators of the Congressional Clinton Impeachment Committee?
Whistling in the dark:
Yes, Ms. Reno is tall for a woman. Yes, she’s a rather plain
looking person. Yes, she scares the beejeebers out of the GOP and DEMs
alike. And, yes, her announced candidacy has caused a recent hurricane
of "Look at Me!" media assaults by JEB Bush’s
million-dollar, taxpayer-paid press mill.
Yeah, remember the first thing the JEBBITES said when the damning
poll about his slipping popularity was reported—right after they
accentuated their positive that if the election were held on the date
of the poll, JEB would beat Ms. Reno? What they said then was: Janet
Reno would be the dream candidate all Republicans should wish for.
Wrong!
You know something else? Katy is predicting as plain a vanilla
campaign posture by JEB as one could imagine. Mark me, any nasties
thrown at Ms. Reno will be presented as though they were more likely
to have come from Iraq than from cute, sweet JEB. Here’s why: guess
who might have more ammunition to toss about if the going gets tough?
All those phony, half-baked and not believed, hysterical,
trumped-up rightwing charges of illegalities in the Clinton
administration will continue to bear that image, but, what if the lady
decides to pull a few arrows from her own quiver?
Yet, she’s never uttered a word publicly against Louis Freeh,
even after taking the heat for actions she okayed on his word. Who do
you believe? She’s sought reconciliation with the Cuban wilders on
the Elian Gonzalez matter, while never yielding her position that the
child belonged with his father. She has held counsel on President
Clinton’s indiscretions, although she assumed the responsibility for
authorizing a Special Counsel to look into his actions.
JEB’s own petard and the petards of the crazies of the right wing
of the GOP are the only arrows Ms. Reno needs to high-step her way
into the Governor’s Mansion.
Then, it’s Katy Bar The Door! (And, they know it. The temperature’s
already rising among the mammonites.)
(Top)
Re. "Questionable Judgment," St. Pete Times, 9/04/01:
Hey, our boy JEBBIE's lack of judgment regarding Mr. Roy Cales'
illegal activities can be understood from the old adage:
"Those who sleep with dogs oft get fleas." Mr. Cales
is a very small dog compared with some of the big- money crooks JEB
sleeps with.
(Top)
Today, the conservatively bent cartoonist in the local Saturday
Features slammed the "baby-boomers." Irresponsible that they don’t
have a savings history to protect them from debtors’ prison--or worse,
from becoming a societal burden. Guilty of the same character flaw they
displayed so openly during the ‘ 60s and ‘70s, all that smokin’ and
jokin’, and that free love stuff.
All week the daily version of the strip gnawed on
"moderates," in the same vein as naughty and bumptious
broadcaster Russ Limbaugh’s hyperbolic tirades for ditto heads
everywhere during the recent presidential election season. You know, them
moderates. Only a tad less smelly than the god-forsaken LIBERALS!
"They literally make me puke!" [Not a direct quote, but I’m
sure he must have said something like that and: "You might as well
vote for Nader as algor." (That’s the supreme panderist’s
pronunciation of AL Gore.)]
BETTER BE PAYING ATTENTION
Those of you who enjoy these caricatures by the dressed-up panderers to
a certain, low brow market; those of whom, like Nixon, need their enemies
lists; those who are generally in a rage against something or other . . .
you, I suspect, are less than thirty percent minority in this country. The
others of you, growling over the loss of protections you thought you had
before the farcical outcome of the election, had better be paying
attention.
This business of Politics is Big Business. The braying herd presently
presuming to lead the way nowadays has shown its hide. A motley crew, this
lot is reminiscent of an earlier time, legendary for names like Tammany
Hal, Boss Tweed, Boss Daley, CREEPs and others that trail back into the
dawn of human commerce. No different those days, but, due to the hot-wired
media links, our attention is drawn like never before to their antics.
Nasty actors, revealed according to level of crudity each displays.
JEB SOOTHES BLACK VOTER CONCERNS
In today’s paper (Saturday, February 24) there’s a story, with a
picture, that has the boy governor of Florida, John E. Bush, simpering,
complete with tissue, as he whines about how badly he feels because some
of his black retinue are catching heat over some of his preemptive
actions. The actions have been interpreted by a majority of blacks as
detrimental to their financial and social well-being.
He was on stage at a black ministers’ meeting hosted by probably the
only black minister in Florida who sponsored JEB, as he likes to be known,
during his candidacy for governor. The Rev. R. B. Holmes, pastor of Bethel
Missionary Baptist Church, founder of the Bethel Family Life Center and,
as announced in the same edition of the paper, recipient of a $500,000
state grant. The grant, as described, will be the Rev.’s to spend for
just about whatever he wants. This $500,000 was bled from the Department
of Children and Families, just another service agency that is definitely
on the way to extinction. Ever heard of Kyla McLean? Katherine Kearney?
Failed child protection program? Privatization for the rich? Some call it
corporate welfare.
The whine job was better even than the downing of the Confederate Stars
and Bars at the State Capitol a week or so ago. Like a thief in the night,
JEB’s agents struck the flag to avoid the nasty headline fights other
die-hard segregationist states politicians have endured over the issue.
So easy, now that the flag is gone, and, because of the tears, no one
will notice what’s really in store for the minorities of Florida.
A COUPLE OF DIGRESSIONS, MERELY TO ENTERTAIN
Petty but nice:
Our boy, JEB, his preferred moniker an acronym made from his initials,
let it be known soon after assuming the office that he would frown
mightily at executive branch departments that harbor acronyminals.
The man will lie:
He seemingly can’t be embarrassed into civility. Very early into his
tenure, JEB, had to deny that he had suggested reducing the size of the
state Department of Labor by fifty percent at a meeting in West Palm
Beach. He was there in part to meet with a black woman he would later name
to head up the Dismantlement of Labor. Hey, he didn’t just cut it by
half, he is well into the process of abolishing the department entirely.
As it is, entering the third year of JEB’s four-year term, the only
program still with the dying department is going to be moved and the
department will be abolished by action of the token legislature whose
majority genuflect to the glory of their party’s state leader and seek
to emulate his cutthroat ways. (Big business, Politics. Put another way:
Politics and Big Business. Mammon rules! Oh, Why doth the heathen rage!?)
HOW JEB DESTROYS LABOR, AND MARCHES ON TALLAHASSEE
(To the beat of Sherman’s March On Atlanta)
Until Bush became governor, Labor was the department of diversity.
Check it out: First there was a white woman department head, sort of a
caretaker appointee for a transfer of workforce and counter-cyclical
economic safety net of the New Deal from the tourism flash programs of the
Department of Commerce (now defunct) in the late ‘70s. JEB got his spurs
as a very young appointee to head up Commerce eight years before he was
elected governor. He expressed himself very clearly back then on the
subject of privatizing government and eliminating the civil service
protections for state workers; notions so preposterous that many must have
forgotten or simply dismissed them as wild meanderings of an inexperienced
political wannabe.
Labor, the Department of Diversity
The first formal appointee to labor was a black man from South Florida
who had developed some Democrat backing as head of a state teachers union.
He served a full eight years, across two terms of a popular Democrat
governor, Bob Graham. The third department head was an Hispanic, also from
South Florida. Riding in with an earlier Republican administration that
also brought us JEB, he had served in some sort of investigative job with
the U.S. Labor Department involving organized labor agents. This hard case
had his inspector generals office staff issued "agent"
credentials and fought to get them issued guns; guns like the one he was
rumored to have carried, no doubt.
A black woman with state staff credentials served for a while, then a
black man who had matriculated from an interim appointment to Education
Commissioner after losing a seat in the legislature. Then there was
another black man, partner in a fat cat law firm that continues to dabble
in state-level politics. Let’s see, then JEB was elected and he wandered
far off the reservation to find his choice, a the aforementioned black
female insurance agent from South Florida.
During most of this time, women, black, and hispanic secretaries of
labor ensured that the department work crew reflected the same percentages
of diversity as in the state demographic map. Now, how many really believe
JEB’s promise to be as diligent throughout his tenure to do the same in
lieu of the affirmative action program he abolished with a snap of his
fingers? And, what if he does, who guarantees it in future
administrations?
SORTA LIKE GRANT TOOK RICHMOND
And, you thought Bill Clinton was slick? Compared to this boy, Willie
actually is slick, that is if you have been paying attention. But, crying
in public about the treatment of some of his black sycophants. A bit
large, eh? It was right there in the paper.
Perhaps you missed a couple of articles in the business section of the
day before, Friday February 23 articles. The local Chamber rag cleverly
hid the real meat by sleight of hand headlines and buried local economy
specifics. The articles quoted experts on economics and government who
presented a dour commentary about what could be expected to happen to the
state capital economy if JEB is successful in his stated intention of
eliminating fully one-quarter of state workers. These were not strident,
critical, partisan observations. JEB’s play was depicted
matter-of-factly as having the same potential damage on the Tallahassee
and wider area economy as the closure of the auto plants had on Flint,
Michigan. Sorta like Grant went through Richmond for you stars-and-bars
totin’ traditionalists.
And, guess what? The second article (beneath the fold, under a big
picture of a black female auto worker in Detroit, with an Associated Press
byline and Detroit dateline, perhaps you didn’t find it locally related)
pointed out that poor, ill-educated, out-of-the-mainstream black workers,
many of them put to work due to mad money savings from abolishing the
social welfare safety net, are the most likely to be cut first. And, oops,
no safety net this time.
WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS?
It took no special insight to have projected that the 1996 Clinton
cave-in to the Republicans to all but abolish the public welfare program
would run into trouble; maybe riots, blood in the streets, when the
economy slackened. That picture continues to firm up with the antics of
JEB and big brother Dubya.
As for JEB’s actions, is it any wonder that he was so vexed over the
unfair treatment of some of his black staffers? Crocodile tears. No wonder
he was crying, gosh, these rubes were about to put it all together! Time
for a distraction.
What have we established so far? (And, this doesn’t even go into the
tort reform; the environmental threats; the test-harried, voucher-plagued
education system; the manipulation of cigarette-suit winnings; the obvious
attempts to weaken the populace’s decision on abortion: the crass
political nature of every move he makes. Nor do we expound here on the
bush family attitude problem exhibited by his wife’s seeming assumption
that it is all right to smuggle undeclared valuables into the country,
that is, unless you can believe her trip to Paris about a year ago was her
first.)
So, we’ve established that JEB Bush is as low a guttersnipe,
unprincipled, lying, political trog as is Bill Clinton, only not as slick
nor as kind and gentle.
PUT IT TOGETHER.AND WHATA YOU GOT? BIBBITY, BOBBITY BOO!
OR: A THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT
What you have here is a most unflattering suggestion that this lil’
monster, our governor, has it in him to deliberately destroy the
Tallahassee area economy; thereby inflicting a grievous wound to the
Democrat Party in Florida, Tallahassee remaining one of the few Democrat
strongholds in the state.
Yep, that’d explain also his war against black people. What was it?
Ninety-five, ninety-six percent of blacks whose votes were actually
counted voted against his brother George W. in the Florida general
election? Motive aplenty, if JEB’s that kind of guy.
He and Dubya pushing school vouchers and talking about
"faith-based" social service funding. Dub talking about a $2
trillion tax break, the richest rewards for the rich. Ooo! A thousand
points of light. As sincere a swoon as JEB’s tears were. (By the way,
notice how the semi-private Lottery staff were not monitored by the state
media during the campaign? Wanna bet what several of these bought and paid
for grunts were doing for Dub?)
Even in this community, where local businesses seem to begrudge the
money that comes into their coffers from state worker pay checks, imagine
the embarrassment, the concern of local Chamber types, the small business
folks, mom and pop, imagine how they must have been surprised by JEB’s
actions and how they will affect the local economy. (Nah, no surprise,
they, led by their betters of Associated Industries Inc., and the local
pet poop catcher, conspired to remain mum on the actions. Short-sighted,
perhaps, and surely dumb, but not surprised.)
KATY BAR THE DOOR
Yeah, diversification of the local economy, that’s the answer, and
easy now that JEB has cut the teeth out of local planning guidance and
enforcement by the State Department of Community Affairs. Now, it’s Katy
bar the door!
The threat of economic collapse is just what the developers ordered,
and their minions are swift to lower the drawbridge. Surely huge
corporations will soon be cruising into town with thousands of high paying
jobs. Sliding down that yellow brick road. Locals read daily how local
elected officials, the eager beaver representatives of the land rapists,
are striking at the planning restrictions barely holding the barbarians at
the gate. Now the cry is out for incentives, loosening the environmental
constraints. Surely desperate times call for desperate measures. Surely we
can sell the denuding of the environment and more urban sprawl. Why, how
can the city remain All American unless it emulates all America?
You can cry me a river, JEB. A pox on your ilk. Here’s a little
faith-based sentiment: for you: May you Reap the Whirlwind.
....Katy, 2/24/01
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BOUGHT AND PAID FOR - Katy
Bar The Door - 7/16/01
THERE THEY GO AGAIN
Remember that long ago when you were exhorted from this
quarter to "pay attention"? This reminder is occasioned by
another insult by the "Pet Poop Catcher," which unfortunately
our combined eyes did not spy in time to make the daily news clips in
WhoseFlorida.com.
"Delay may unplug high-tech hopes" bannered
across Page 1 Sunday, July 15, and an echoing opinion piece lead the
editorial section: "Incentives: Sound Policy for Job Creation."
Nothing new there, in the editorial, that is.
"Katy" observed in "RAZING
TALLAHASSEE," March 31, 2001, that the barbarians are at the
gate, that their minions among the elected elite were ready to lower the
drawbridge to ensure clear passage for the land "improvement"
despoilers, and that the dream of pulling in thousands of high-tech jobs
was just that: a dream.
Well, the article was about how attempts to attract a
semiconductor manufacturer -- not exactly the type of high-tech jobs that
pay the best -- for the Tallahassee area are threatened by review barriers
and lingering demands for "concurrency" in infrastructure before
the permits would be considered, i.e., that developers be required to pay
up front for the road building and other necessities to accommodate
population increases development would create. About how more and more
incentives are needed to counter the dirty deeds of JEB Bush, specifically
his move to reduce state employment by 25 percent. And, something to do
with the dreadful collapse of the NASDAQ.
Yes, as suggested they would, the bidness leaders, a
phantom team whose front man is a spokesperson from DuPont/St. Joe Co./Arvida
(the Southwood developers), are leading the pack. There’s hardly any
suggestion even that elected officials have any say at all anymore.
Anyway, all this was predictable, and predicted.
"Backers of the effort to recruit a semiconductor
company are hopeful that the tech sector will rebound – and that an
overseas manufacturer will look to Leon County to expand its U.S.
operations." Oh, yeah? Hopeful, indeed.
The Tally Rag is fronting for the rape-and-pillage crowd,
at once announcing the initiative: the possibility of the new
semi-business, and decrying the "barriers." The tone would
remind you of baby talk. "Can we say Arvida," kiddies?"
Way, way deep into the piece, a Rick Kearney, identified
as CEO and president of Mainline Global Systems "an e-business and
computer marketing company" (How’s bidness, Rick?), is quoted:
"And if we can get a relationship with FSU (Florida
State University) and state outsourcing jobs (JEB’s proclivity for
handing big bucks contracts to buds in the rapacious sector), we will be
known." Following that, Mr. Kearney uses an especially unfortunate
metaphor:
NUCLEAR REACTOR, (ER . . . NUCULER)
"We have got to begin to tap into that nuclear
reactor activity, but we don’t even have an extension cord into
that." At least, I hope it was merely metaphor. Extension cord?
Please, please don’t let them go so far as to push for
nuclear reactors; not suggesting that was the meaning of Mr. Kearney’s
remark; but who knows? Wherever the most money can be made.
HERE IT IS, EVERYTHING, THE WHOLE ENCHILADA:
What did Katy tell you last time? Better be paying
attention.
Ms. Janet Reno had it right in her charge to a meeting of
Democrat faithful Saturday, the day before the offending items were
published: "BEAT JEB BUSH!"
Since all here is opinion, based on some real
observations, I will end with on a less secure note.
A ticket with Ms. Reno as the candidate and Lois Frankel
as her Lieutenant Governor running mate is the best bet for sending JEBBIE
back to Hyannis Port where he and the whole Bush clan should retire
further political ambitions. (‘Cause, you see, if JEBBIE loses in
Ought-2, Dubya will cut and run in Ought-4.)
Democrat and Republican will say, "What about the
moderate votes you’d lose in the Panhandle?" Give ‘em all to JEB.
The Reno-Frankel would cream him in South Florida, and that’s where the
real count is to be had (except for a few out-of-touch Cuban elites).
The political parties got us in this mess. Ignore the
party interests in favor of the interests of the people of Florida.
And, KATY BAR THE DOOR! , 7/17/01
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