Highlands County Democratic Party

THE MIAMI HERALD | EDITORIAL

OUR OPINION: GOP legislators use backdoor attempt to deny Floridians due process in redistricting matters

BY THE MIAMI HERALD EDITORIAL

By TBO.COM | Staff
Published: February 20, 2012

Imagine you’re a member of the political class. You’ve spent your life being a back-slapping, status-quo-supporting, go-along-to-get-along career politician who tries not to offend anyone. For a while, things were great. You made almost 200 grand a year between your day “job” as an elected official while moonlighting as government adviser or lobbyist or such for a bell-ringing charity.

Then you get term-limited out of the cushy elected position and have to run for something else. The state Senate looks good despite the fact that it’s about a $60,000 pay cut. But you don’t worry; there are plenty of lobbyists and special interests in Tallahassee who will help ease the financial blow.

You run, and you win, but your pesky primary opponent files a lawsuit and airs a whole bunch of dirty laundry about you. Court cases, criminal investigations involving the IRS and dead people, and media condemnation ensue, but ultimately you’re cleared of any wrongdoing because there isn’t a statute that says a politician can’t be an unethical dirt bag.

Two years later it’s re-election time, and a fellow Republican has the gall to announce he plans to run against you. Shortly thereafter your top aide in charge of your sporting event/skybox party planning gets busted for not filing tax returns – for five years. While he worked for you.

Given all your baggage, you would think the “powers that be” in your community and Tallahassee would want to run you out of town faster than a Muslim at a tea party rally.

Of course, if you believe that’s what happens in our state’s capitol, I’ve got a $400K lakefront house in Arkansas I’d like to give to you. Actually, I would give it to your spouse so you don’t have to report it.

The reality is, this is Tallahassee and the power brokers like the fact that you’re a predictable stooge. The bosses are no more sitting around their smoke-filled rooms asking “who is the smartest, most capable and trustworthy person who could occupy this seat?” than the Pope is asking Barack Obama for advice about birth control. Heck, if those were the standards, the capitol would be a ghost town.

Tallahassee works like this: the big shots (made up of what I call the “half-dummies”) need some dunces (the “total dummies”) to carry their water for stupid bills such as making it illegal to take a picture of a cow. No doubt a law banning taking pictures of farm animals ought to solve whatever doom lingers on the horizon whenever someone takes such a photo.

So when one of the dunce-cap dummies in Tallahassee is threatened by an election opponent, the half-dummies get nervous and have to come up with a plan to save him. Such a plan might go like this: Get a wealthy, term-limited half-dummy senator who inherited everything he’s got to propose something that will enrage 95 percent of the constituents of the dunce who is facing the electoral defeat. Then – and this is the sinister part – arrange to have the dunce save the day.

Of course, identifying such a large constituency to offend isn’t easy. End shuffleboard subsidies, and only old people get mad. Make cuts to schools, and everybody yawns but the teachers’ unions. Balance the budget by imposing a tax only on interior decorators and taxidermists, and you’ve only angered 2,314 people statewide.

In order to really enrage a large mass of people who will then be “saved” by our hero, Sen. Dumb Dumb (aka: Dim Doorman), you’ll need to go after … the Bulls.

So the stewards of the status quo enlist Sen. I.B. Commander, a land baron by inheritance and cousin of Cruela Devil, the forgotten former secretary of state. The senator is the most tone-deaf, self-absorbed, unrelenting, Bull-hating member of the Legislature to ever grace the halls of the capitol. He fits the bill of an antagonist better than you could write such a character for a movie script.

All goes as planned, and Sen. Doorman gets lots of great press for saving the Bulls and looks like he’ll cruise to an easy re-election. Because despite the fact that Tallahassee is full of half-dummies and dunce-cap dummies, we the voters are the dumbest of them all.

BY CARL HIAASEN  

In their unflagging efforts to distance themselves from mainstream America, Republican leaders have gleefully seized upon a social issue that’s guaranteed to backfire in November:

Birth control.

Carl Hiaasen

If you’re mystified, you’re not alone. Ignoring years of public-opinion polls, the GOP is boldly marching backwards into the 1960s to question whether contraception is a legitimate health-care benefit.

The target, as always, is President Obama. He issued an executive mandate requiring that free birth control be included in health plans provided to employees of schools, charities and hospitals connected to religiously affiliated institutions.

Although the mandate excludes churches, Roman Catholic bishops are in a huff, saying the contraception provision violates the First Amendment and “freedom of religion.”

Never mind that Obama softened the rule so that the insurance companies, not the employers, will pay for the coverage. Never mind that many employees served by these healthcare plans don’t share the same religion as the institute for whom they work.

Republican strategists see the controversy as another opportunity to bash Obama’s healthcare reforms, and also to rile up white Christian evangelicals who don’t like the president anyway.

As political miscalculations go, this one could be epic. If you’re looking for a sure way to galvanize female voters against your own party, attack birth control.

Whom does the administration’s mandate help? Teachers, secretaries, nurses, lab techs — working women who can’t afford, or don’t choose, to get pregnant.

Yet to hear the yowls of outrage, you’d think these hospitals and schools were being ordered to round up their workers and force-feed them birth-control pills against their will.

Leading the opposition are Catholic bishops, whose archaic dictums against contraception are widely disregarded by their own flock. According to most surveys, about 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use some type of birth control.

It’s safe to assume that rather large segment includes employees of, say, the University of Notre Dame.

Polling also shows that more than two-thirds of all practicing Catholics believe you can still be a good Catholic if you use contraception. So, they basically humor the church hierarchy on this subject, politely listening to priestly reminders and acknowledging the occasional admonition from the pope himself.

There’s no movement to excommunicate parishioners for the alleged sin of using condoms, IUDs or pills because that would effectively leave most churches empty as a tomb on Sundays.

Now, after decades of having their stance against birth control ignored, Catholic bishops have finally found a receptive audience: Republicans in Congress.

Last week, having nothing more important to do, a House committee scheduled a hearing modestly titled: “Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are seeking to block any health-insurance rules that conflict with a business owner’s private beliefs, whatever that means. If such an amendment passes, we could theoretically see a mass conversion to Catholicism among company executives trying to squirm out of offering birth control in their employees’ medical policies.

Smart corporations already provide contraceptive coverage because it’s way cheaper than paying obstetrical costs for unplanned pregnancies.

Interestingly, as the bishops and their newfound evangelical allies promise to fight on in the courts and in Congress to knock down the president’s rule, little mention is being made of the large federal sums received by many of the religiously affiliated institutions affected by the birth-control mandate.

Why should any school or hospital that takes a dime of taxpayer money be exempt from providing the same healthcare benefits that apply across the board? That’s what contraception is — basic health care — and that’s how it’s perceived by a majority of Americans.

In a New York Times/CBS poll last week, 65 percent of those surveyed said they support Obama’s directive that all health-insurance plans should include birth control. Fifty-nine percent of everyone interviewed, as well as 57 percent of Catholics, said contraceptives should also be provided by the medical plans of religiously-affiliated employers.

Obviously, limiting the availability of birth control is an unpopular idea in this country. That it’s getting traction in Congress illustrates how completely the Republican Party has been carjacked by its bug-eyed, right-wing fringe.

Even as national women’s groups mobilize to support the administration, the GOP presidential candidates are piping up to denounce the birth-control benefit as a sinister plot against religion. Among the alarmed is Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts uttered not a whisper of objection to a state law that was virtually identical to the president’s mandate.

You can be certain that the fall election won’t hinge on social issues that were settled in the minds of voters decades ago. If the Republicans stay on this sorry, dead-end path, Obama’s task is clear:

Ice the champagne.

By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

JD Alexander

Even by his own wretched standards, state Sen. JD Alexander has outdone himself this time. His obsession to have the last word with the University of South Florida now borders on legislative malfeasance.

The petulant prince of Polk County politics used his position as chairman of the Senate’s budget committee to propose a 58 percent cut to the state’s contribution to USF’s budget for next year, and we all know why. It’s the next move in his crusade to turn Polk’s USF Polytechnic into an independent university as quickly as possible, presumably under the name of JD Tech.

He’s like King Henry in the “Lion in Winter.” Alexander plots and schemes, wanting only to win and the consequences be hanged. If he has to destroy USF to get what he wants, that’s just fine.

Well, he won’t win — not this time.  

“The odds of that are slim and none,” Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, speaker-designate of the Florida House of Representatives, told me Monday. “The good news is, we’re a bicameral process in Florida. Both the House and the Senate have to agree.

“I can’t speak for the Senate and their budgeting process, but our job is to make sure all the cuts are fair. Everybody is going to get cut, but it has to be across the board.”

* * * * *

So what’s Alexander’s game? If it’s to be a pain in the rear, he has succeeded. Then again, the Legislature’s answer to Bart Simpson has always been a pain. Where’s the sport in that?

If it’s to exact revenge on USF President Judy Genshaft for firing Polytechnic Chancellor Marshall Goodman, an Alexander crony, in December, this is like using a flamethrower to start a campfire. To even propose whacking 58 percent of USF’s state money (while suggesting cuts of 25.8 percent at Florida and 22.3 percent at Florida State) is beyond vile.

“I have no confidence in the stewardship of USF based on their actions,” Alexander said after the proposed budget came out.

Simplified, the cuts would take $79 million from USF’s budget next year, with millions more in what amounts to penalties associated with Poly.

Alexander’s plan eliminates 100 percent of funding for Poly and forces USF to absorb $18 million in costs for those students and faculty, with no money to support them. He tosses in a $6 million slash for USF’s College of Pharmacy, apparently just for giggles.

As tennis brat John McEnroe once said, “You cannot be serious.”

* * * * *

The Board of Governors has said it wants to see USF Poly move toward independence, but there is no timetable. That ought to be the last word.

If he is looking for bargaining chips in the budget battle with the House, then he just pushed USF to the middle of the table. You never can dismiss mayhem as a motive.

USF will have to waste man hours dealing with his manufactured crisis. There were meetings all over campus Monday and there will be more before this exercise in chaos theory is done.

You’d think a man with statewide power would be concerned about serious governance, but this is JD Alexander. It’s probably too much to ask.

You’d think the political process had turned into one big, sexy GoDaddy Super Bowl ad, with all the focus on breasts, bellies and even butts this week.

Let me explain how our political discourse had gone all T&A on us.

Amid the uncertainty of a meringue-strong economy, a continuing housing market crisis and persistent unemployment, the folks hired to try to fix these kinds of things in the Old Dominion spent their time legislating decisions that should be left to doctors.

The Virginia Senate passed a bill Wednesday requiring women who are about to have a legal abortion to get an ultrasound first. The woman is supposed to be shown the image and will have to sign a waiver if she chooses not to take a look.

Should they also make the women listen to some lullabies? Smell some baby powder?

This legislation is nothing but bullying.

And the biggest bully on the playground this week wore pink. The Susan G. Komen Foundation, in a thinly veiled attack on abortion, withdrew its funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings. [Ed. note: The Komen Foundation restored grant funding to Planned Parenthood.)

Yes, the folks who sell you all those hats, bookbags and special-edition tea covered in pink pulled their funding for the screenings at Planned Parenthood, which basically means breast cancer prevention for a lot of low-income people.

You think an assault on women’s ta-ta health isn’t enough? How about we take on the Girls Scouts, too?

My Washington Post colleague Robert McCartney just wrote about the war against the Girl Scouts.

Churches in Virginia and other parts of the country have kicked out Girl Scout troops after a virulent smear campaign linking them to an international scouting association and every single reference either group has ever made to Planned Parenthood.

The anti-Girl Scout campaign is being pushed by stuff like this: “100 Questions for the Girl Scouts” on www.familywatchinternational.org.

“Why did the Girl Scouts feature Marie Wilson, staunch abortion supporter and defender of Planned Parenthood, as a keynote speaker at a national Girl Scout convention?”

Um, maybe because Wilson is the co-founder of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day and because she is the author of Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Run the World.

This is insanity. And all of it threatens things that are good — even vital — for women. Meanwhile, the work that needs to be done to help prevent unwanted pregnancies — real sex education and easy access to birth control — is being marginalized.

And the work that needs to be done to bolster good parenting — real child care, equal pay for mothers and flexible work time for all families — is being ignored.

No wonder there’s a backlash erupting. The Pink Bully is getting blasted big-time online:

“Through various events at work I have supported the Susan G. Komen organization. With this decision — that support has ended,” declared AggieHullabaloo.

“What a stupid, cowardly, toadying decision by a group that claims to support women!” wrote MaryinChicago.

And get a load of hokiejane: “No more. Not a dime. My pink SGK jacket is in the bag for Goodwill as I type, and I’m ”de-ribboning“ myself completely.”

Even author/icon Judy Blume chimed in: “Susan Komen would not give in to bullies or to fear. Too bad the foundation bearing her name did. Support (at)PPact. Save lives,” tweeted the author of “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.”

Thousands of women rushed to support Planned Parenthood. The organization received $650,000 in 24 hours.

Women have had enough and have struck back in some pretty interesting ways. Buying Girl Scout cookies is an easy and yummy way to make a statement. (Thin Mints as political protest!) But take a look at this maneuver by Virginia state Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, on the odious ultrasound legislation.

Howell proposed a “his” version of the bill, with some requirements for Viagra prescriptions:

“Prior to prescribing medication for erectile dysfunction, a physician shall perform a digital rectal examination and a cardiac stress test,” Howell said, reading the amendment aloud. “Informed consent for these procedures shall be given at least 24 hours before the procedures are performed.

”I just think we should have a little gender equity here,“ Howell added.

You want to hear the real kicker? The amendment fell short by just two votes. Keep messing with us and the next time it might pass.

The GOP nominating contest moves next to Nevada, where there’s a betting line on every fight. Here’s a look at the odds for Romney vs. Gingrich.

In the category of Falsely Characterizing Obama, Romney uses “European Socialist,” which is powerful and connects well with xenophobic voters. Gingrich relies on “Saul Alinsky Radical.” Alinsky, the Chicago populist who died in 1972, was best known for fighting on behalf of the poor and middle class — so drumming away at this obscure reference isn’t helping Gingrich. Edge: Romney.

In the What’s My Fake Line? category, most registered Republicans are counting on the fact that anything beats “community organizer.” So, Gingrich calls himself an “historian,” while Romney professes to be a “businessman.” Neither candidate cares for “politician,” although that’s what they’ve each been for most of their adult lives. Edge: Romney.

In the all-important Wives category, Gingrich’s total of three is hard to top. Romney has only been married once, although his great grandfather did flee to Mexico with at least five wives to escape U.S. monogamy laws. Edge: Gingrich.

When it comes to Exaggerated Job Creation Claims, Gingrich boasts that he helped create an astounding 27 million jobs during the Reagan and Clinton administrations. The math and politics are fuzzy, but who wouldn’t vote for 27 million new jobs? Romney can only claim 120,000 jobs — most coming at places like Staples and Sports Authority long after his tenure. Unfortunately for Gingrich, GOP voters believe that government can’t create jobs, thus negating his 27 million. Edge: Romney.

Gingrich easily wins the Who I Want You to Think of When You Think of Me competition. Gingrich deftly cites Ronald Reagan in his answers to all questions. Romney, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to relate to anyone in his past — although he does, oddly, have a large photo of his father, George, on his campaign bus. He also used to mention his Irish Setter Seamus, until word got out that he once strapped Seamus to the roof of the family car for a 12-hour drive to Canada. Edge: Gingrich.

Fawning Over Hispanics is an important category in Florida, and Gingrich hired former advisors to Sen. Marco Rubio along with several other local Hispanic leaders. But Romney trumped that by having his son Craig narrate campaign ads in Spanish. Edge: Romney.

There’s keen competition in the category of Personal Attacks, even though both men claim they’d rather not stoop to such things. Romney calls Gingrich a “failed leader”; Gingrich says Romney is “timid” and “confused”; Romney labels Gingrich “highly erratic”; Gingrich says Romney is full of “pious baloney.” Edge: even.

In the Wackiest Idea category, Gingrich appeared to have it wrapped up when he declared that students should be hired as school janitors. Then, in a stunning move, Romney bested him by announcing that he favors “self deportation” of illegal immigrants. Edge: Romney.

In the Whose Tax Returns are More Damning category, Gingrich has a lot of splainin’ to do about the $1.6 million he was paid by Freddie Mac to teach history. But Romney’s return not only revealed bank accounts in Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, it put the lie to a fundamental GOP claim. If low tax rates for the wealthy — Romney paid about 15 percent% — are supposed to spur job creation, then how many jobs did Romney create with over $40 million that he earned the last two years? None. Edge: Romney.

It’s a tight one. The best Romney and Gingrich backers can hope for is that it never comes down to the category all pageant hopefuls dread most: Congeniality.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker and can be reached at www.CandidCamera.com/

BY LEONARD PITTS JR.

Leonard Pitts