It's time for a Virtual March on Tallahassee!
by RW Spisak Jr.
Government in the Moonshine (by the light of a New Moon) Government lit by a nightlight - out of the Sunlight is how they like to run the people's business in Tally. They purposely exempted themselves, so that they and their colleagues the lobbyists, can meet under the tables, behind closed doors, inside the pockets of wealthy corporate interests, and only emerge blinking into the sunlight after the deals are done. And after those same wealthy pockets have been carefully re-feathered with the peoples tax-money!
Another hand out to the insurance industry, no problem! All the lobbyists thought it was a great idea. No pesky reporters needed, nor need any time be made for public testimony. On the other hand there is time for the DRILLING LOBBY! Offshore oil drilling pipes up onto the former white sand, no problem. The tankers, drilling platforms and storage tanks will look good alongside the bikinis. If these knowledgeable ladies and gentlemen suggest that overnight the lost tourist dollars will be replaced by environmentally friendly DRILLERS no problem, we heard no facts that might contradict. They all nodded in unison, like windup dolls. If their friends the lobbyists, propose that drilling and pipelines will fit well alongside the former tourist friendly beaches, no one testified otherwise. They didn't have time for that kind of testimony?
If they decide to gut voter rights and open the pipeline to unregulated outside political money with no oversight? It's strictly the lobbyists business not any business of the public. After all two secret minutes of scheduled public comment is more than enough? All the lobbyists agreed.
Floridians, we need a VIRTUAL MARCH on the secret business conducted in the Tallahassee backrooms.
During a budget crisis the only talks are informal, by the light of the black cat and the darkside of the moon? No SUNSHINE HERE, the Legislature exempted themselves from SUNSHINE!.
Send them your eyes, WE ARE WATCHING! Send them your ears, WE ARE LISTENING to their foolishness. Send them your hands, which will be casting votes to oppose ONE PARTY MISRULE in Tallahassee. Send them your feet, WE ARE WALKING AWAY from secret sweetheart deals, where the good old boys and girls from UPSTATE, write checks to their lobbyist buds, with lucrative tax-money padded jobs with maybe an private aircraft hanger on the side. They've been thinking it's strictly their business, not yours! Let's show them how wrong they are!
It's time for a virtual MARCH ON TALLAHASSEE. There's budget money for corporate give-aways but no money for teachers, cops and higher education, but a walkaway guananteed bonus for the retiring legislator? OOPS thanks for the strong stench of a wake up call kiddies! You may have been brewing something sweet for many years, but finally even down state we can smell that sweetheart deal you brewed.
Its time for a VIRTUAL MARCH ON TALLAHASSEE.
They have counted on the distance, and the cost and the poverty of the electors to isolate them from oversight. They and their lobbyist golfing pals have been running amuck for far too long. You've stayed to long at the fair boys and girls, and the nasty brew you've been cooking for way too long has finally caught up with you. Too much overreaching has gotten you way way out on a limb, there kiddies, and the people have caught on.
Its time for a VIRTUAL MARCH ON TALLY - RALLY THE TROOPS! RALLY IN TALLY -CALL THEM, MAIL THEM, FAX THEM, TELL THEM THE GOOD OLD DAYS FOR THE GOOD OLD BOYS ARE OVER, TIMES UP!
Government by the light of the Dark side of the MOON is SO OVER!
Its time for a VIRTUAL MARCH ON TALLAHASSEE.
Florida Senate
Jeff Atwater President of the Senate
(850) 487-5100
FAX (561) 625-5103
Florida House
Speaker Larry Cretul
(850) 488-1157
Fax: (850) 488-9707
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
MORE REPUBLICAN VOTING REGISTRATION SHENANIGANS
"TALLAHASSEE — A House council hurriedly passed a sweeping rewrite of Florida election laws Friday, shutting down public comment after just two minutes and prompting an uproar from opponents."
Part 1
Part 2
There has been no fraud found in ANY of the states, in which republican legislators have recently found the need to create new voter eligibility restrictions.
Florida has had reasonable ID restrictions for years, this state has never allowed any old home made ID. Once again we find REPUBLICANS trying to railroad new restrictions on ID requirements and tightening the rules under which voter registrations are collected, all to solve a non-existent problems. Or is it to scratch an unspeakable itch.
Finally increasing the distance to 100 feet, for voter information and assistance is also unnecessary. Removing lawyers who can assist with voters questions, that is manipulation, not intended in anyway to assist voters. Evidently gerrymandering alone has been inadequate to their purpose.
Support Redistricting Reform - there will be a petition drive headed your way on the next few weeks.
Part 1
Well, well, shutting down public comments, after two whole minutes of debate??? REPUBLICANS, once again looking for "fraud" in all the wrong places...
Just another attempt to manufacture a republican controlled electoral system.
We've seen again and again across America, State House Republicans invent new "helpful" voting rules. Over and over inventing fresh constraints limiting democratic processes. Pretending to see fraud, where there has been none, inventing new ID requirements. Devising "protections" against non-existent election fraud. See the pattern?
It would seem that unless REPUBLICANS can purge the rolls, and restrict participation, they don't think it's FAIR?
They have through recent manipulations already made it so difficult that non-partisan organizations like the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS can no longer to assist in enrolling voters. That's what they call PROGRESS???
Why is it that reducing participation, and creating new restrictive voting rules, are priorities for republican lawmakers. Can you decipher it?
They don't think you can.
Its' really not that hard to figure out. Republicans would be happier, if most Americans just didn't vote. The smaller the electorate, the easier for the RADICAL Republican Minority to manipulate the levers of government.
Are they really interested in protecting us from non-existent fraud, or from a competitive elections. They are convinced you don't care!
Part 2
There has been no fraud found in ANY of the states, in which republican legislators have recently found the need to create new voter eligibility restrictions.
Florida has had reasonable ID restrictions for years, this state has never allowed any old home made ID. Once again we find REPUBLICANS trying to railroad new restrictions on ID requirements and tightening the rules under which voter registrations are collected, all to solve a non-existent problems. Or is it to scratch an unspeakable itch.
Finally increasing the distance to 100 feet, for voter information and assistance is also unnecessary. Removing lawyers who can assist with voters questions, that is manipulation, not intended in anyway to assist voters. Evidently gerrymandering alone has been inadequate to their purpose.
Support Redistricting Reform - there will be a petition drive headed your way on the next few weeks.
Friday, April 10, 2009
More from the No Geneva Protections Crowd
The reason the rules of warfare exist is not merely to protect nation states, or soldiers under formal military arms. Non-state actors have long been a part of warfare. The armed citizens who confronted the military on Boston Commons, were not state actors. General Washington insisted that even Hessian mercenaries, thought guilty of extreme brutality in battle were to be treated with respect, and not harmed, when held as prisoners. General Washington was a civilized soldier, which is more than can be said of America's last commander in chief.
The purpose of the civilizing laws of war, is an attempt however limited, to extend basic human rights and dignity to all under arms. These rules represent an important part of the compact of civilization and the rule of law. Laws to make war even slightly more humane however partial, remain an important step in the right direction. The banning of the use of poisonous gas after World War I (originally marketed to reluctant participants, as the War to End All Wars.)
That there are those who act outside civilized law is a reality. We Americans, must act according to the highest standard of humanity, not sink to the level of any lawless group, religious or not.
Regarding the discredited Bush policies, again and again, evidence has been brought to light revealing that torture policies, emanated directly from meetings in the White House. Former President of the Senate and Vice President, Richard Cheney took personal credit for those policies on more than one occasion. Decisions reached by the Bush Cheney administration, in the White House guided the official torture policies, not the actions (as Rumsfeld's Defense Department tried to suggest) of out of control random actors. Despite President Bushes repeated denials of torture. What was the Bush regimes definition of torture? They had an opinion from their attorney Mr. Yoo.
[Mr. Yoo's 40-page, January 9, 2002, memo advised the Defense Department that neither the Geneva Convention nor the War Crimes Act applied to the treatment of Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, he said, was a "failed state" and so not a party to the Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war from "physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion" to secure information, as well as from humiliating or degrading treatment. Members of the Taliban militia were not POW's but simply illegal combatants, he said.]
National Guardsmen from West Virginia did not bring leashes, and dog collars from home. The policies used in Guantanamo, were specifically imported to prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. "Black Sites" and Extraordinary Rendition are not the policies of a civilized nation. They do not represent the American tradition of "rule of law".
The duplicity of the Bush Administration that simultaneously proclaimed that they did not torture, based on their own spinning of the definitions of "Torture" have been discredited again and again. History will reveal, that the destroyed CIA tapes of "enhanced interrogation" are not the only evidence of the inhumane policies of the Bush Administration.
We are a nation of laws, and Bush's signing statements notwithstanding the law has survived the misdeeds of the Bush Administration. We are wiser for it. Support the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law!
solidarity & peace
Rick Spisak
The purpose of the civilizing laws of war, is an attempt however limited, to extend basic human rights and dignity to all under arms. These rules represent an important part of the compact of civilization and the rule of law. Laws to make war even slightly more humane however partial, remain an important step in the right direction. The banning of the use of poisonous gas after World War I (originally marketed to reluctant participants, as the War to End All Wars.)
That there are those who act outside civilized law is a reality. We Americans, must act according to the highest standard of humanity, not sink to the level of any lawless group, religious or not.
Regarding the discredited Bush policies, again and again, evidence has been brought to light revealing that torture policies, emanated directly from meetings in the White House. Former President of the Senate and Vice President, Richard Cheney took personal credit for those policies on more than one occasion. Decisions reached by the Bush Cheney administration, in the White House guided the official torture policies, not the actions (as Rumsfeld's Defense Department tried to suggest) of out of control random actors. Despite President Bushes repeated denials of torture. What was the Bush regimes definition of torture? They had an opinion from their attorney Mr. Yoo.
[Mr. Yoo's 40-page, January 9, 2002, memo advised the Defense Department that neither the Geneva Convention nor the War Crimes Act applied to the treatment of Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, he said, was a "failed state" and so not a party to the Geneva Convention, which protects prisoners of war from "physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion" to secure information, as well as from humiliating or degrading treatment. Members of the Taliban militia were not POW's but simply illegal combatants, he said.]
National Guardsmen from West Virginia did not bring leashes, and dog collars from home. The policies used in Guantanamo, were specifically imported to prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. "Black Sites" and Extraordinary Rendition are not the policies of a civilized nation. They do not represent the American tradition of "rule of law".
The duplicity of the Bush Administration that simultaneously proclaimed that they did not torture, based on their own spinning of the definitions of "Torture" have been discredited again and again. History will reveal, that the destroyed CIA tapes of "enhanced interrogation" are not the only evidence of the inhumane policies of the Bush Administration.
We are a nation of laws, and Bush's signing statements notwithstanding the law has survived the misdeeds of the Bush Administration. We are wiser for it. Support the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law!
solidarity & peace
Rick Spisak
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