In Miami, they’re starting to figure out that touch screen voting machines may not be the panacea that was hoped for after the 2000 election fiasco.
Touch screens cost more to purchase, more to operate, and more to maintain than optical scan machines, and they leave no paper trail – there is no way to independently audit the accuracy of the machines during an actual election.
Still, the news that Miami-Dade might dump their expensive and fairly new touch screens and replace them with optical scanners is something of a pleasant shock.
Miami-Dade is poised to be the first place in the nation to ditch the iVotronics paperless voting machines for paper-based balloting after the county’s top election supervisor on Friday issued a memo ‘’strongly recommending” the change.
……
County leaders would have to choose one of seven optical scanners offered by three different vendors, including ES&S — a process that could take seven months. The county would need 1,600 optical scanners, which cost as much as $6,000 each and take up to nine months to arrive.
Sola said they would have to spend $9.4 million to $12.3 million to equip the county’s 749 precincts with the new machines. But he expects they could recoup the purchase price in a few election cycles through savings in operating costs and that the transition would be relatively smooth because the county already uses a handful of optical scanners to count absentee ballots.
”In fact, based on the initial analysis, the county could save more than $13.21 million over five years,” Sola wrote.
……
News of Sola’s memo prompted U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, a longtime touch-screen critic, to urge Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood to study the accuracy of the voting machines in all touch-screen counties.
The move to ditch the iVotronics accelerated in April when elections chief Constance Kaplan resigned after her department found that human error led to hundreds of votes being tossed out in recent elections.
Days later, Burgess asked Sola to assess whether optical scanners, which count votes marked on ”bubble sheets,” would deliver more accurate results. Burgess also wanted information on how much a switch would cost and how much it might save in the long run.
After the 2000 election debacle, county officials went with what they considered the most sophisticated technology around — touch-screen voting machines. Miami-Dade bought 7,200 iVotronics, a paperless machine that stores votes on hard drives and discs.
In all, 16 of Florida’s 67 counties chose touch-screen machines, including Broward. Other counties with large urban centers, except Orlando’s Orange County, followed Miami-Dade’s lead, choosing ES&S.
But in the machines’ first major test, the September 2002 primary, Election Day was a disaster in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Complications with the machines prevented polls from opening on time, leading to the intervention of the governor.
The machines had relatively few glitches in later votes. But most recently, a coding error led to hundreds of ballots being thrown out in the March special referendum on slot machines. The same mistake was found in five other municipal elections, but Kaplan said the number of missing votes would not have affected outcomes.
In addition, the cost of the actual elections has escalated. There is about one election countywide each year and 30 or so municipal races. Sola’s memo said that previous punch-card countywide elections cost about $1.5 million — a price tag that has mushroomed to as much as $8 million with the iVotronics.
The county must replace the back-up batteries on the machines for about $1 million and the batteries on the cartridges used to program the machines for another $61,504. And, with an increase in registered voters, Sola said he expected the county would need to buy 1,000 more machines before 2008 for another $4 million.
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Fond of inserting annoying little creatures into his rectum.
Like Mr. Slave, who brilliantly answered Paris Hilton’s pineapple trick by entirely inserting Paris herself into his asshole and lisping “Oooh, Jesus Christ!”, Tampa has won a big Whore Off contest by simply out-whoring the other big whores: because we were number two, we whored harder .
Wearing snappy suits and anxious looks, Tampa Bay area leaders leapt from their chairs, whooped, hugged and pumped their fists. It was as if they had just won the Super Bowl.
In an upset, they had.
Tampa was awarded Super Bowl XLIII by a vote of NFL owners Wednesday at the league’s spring meeting, narrowly beating Atlanta with promises of roller-coaster rides, golf courses and sunshine.
……
Tampa Bay spiced up its bid Tuesday with an additional $1 million, including $759,000 for tending (sic) the NFL Experience, bringing the bid total to about $11 million. Tampa also promised to give the 31 NFL owners 150 tickets each to a party at Tampa’s Busch Gardens the night before the big game.
$230,000 worth of tickets to Busch Gardens - I wonder if the unused ones are redeemable for cash? The tickets were part of the original bid, which has been widely reported to be worth around $10 million – 3 times the value of the next sleaziest city’s bid, and a record that will no doubt have to be surpassed by the next group of sluts that offer themselves in exchange for promises of fame and fortune.
“We made every concession any city can make,” said Paul Catoe, CEO of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. “There’s no city out there that can beat what we have on the table. We’ve given the NFL $1 million in game-day expenses … no one else is stepping to the plate with $1 million.”
So, now we’re officially up to $11 million, but we can expect that figure to rise exponentially, as it did in Jacksonville.
The additional costs bring the city’s overall tab to $12.9 million for hosting the Super Bowl, which drew more than 100,000 visitors. That’s more than four times the $2.8 million estimated in February 2004.
Still, 10 or 12 or $44 million is money well spent, since the economic impact of these games is legendary .
“We always like events that generate a tremendous economic impact,” said Mark Huey, Tampa’s economic development manager.
Tampa didn’t do an economic impact study after the 2001 Super Bowl, said Paul Catoe, president of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau. But studies showed that the game pumped $340 million into San Diego in 2003.
“By the time it rolls around back to Tampa we’re probably in the neighborhood of $350- to $370-million,” Catoe said.
That’s quite an impressive number that Mr. Catoe is pulling out of his ass (Oooh, Jesus Christ!). It’s too bad that no one did a study of the 2001 game. Oh, wait: Tampa didn’t do a study, but the NFL says that the game provided a $250 million economic impact.
“I think those are gross exaggerations,” said Alan Sanderson, a University of Chicago economist.
Out of that multimillion-dollar number, he said, you have to subtract expenditures that would have happened regardless of the Super Bowl. Take out jacked-up hotel room prices that go to an out-of-town company like Hyatt. Take out ticket prices and souvenir sales for hats and jerseys made outside of Florida. Subtract the millions that won’t be spent at area malls because of Super Bowl-related events.
Then add in estimates that Sanderson says are usually not included in forecasts, such as “additional security costs, marketing and advertising that the NFL may foist off on the locals to do.”
In the end, “if the NFL gives you a number of $300-million, I’m going to say $50-million max of that” will end up helping the Tampa economy, he said.
Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., said that while a Super Bowl can pull in many out-of-town fans, those fans are usually replacing other visitors who would be in town anyway. It’s a phenomenon that is particularly pronounced in a warm-weather city such as Tampa, which draws large numbers of visitors during the winter months.
Philip Porter, an Economist at USF, has made a name for himself studying the financial impacts of Super Bowls and other big sports events. Back in 2000, he suggested, though in a more genteel way than I ever would, that certain people had been pulling figures out of their asses for quite some time.
One must wonder where the impact number came from. The Task Force didn’t commission a study and none of the members are economists.
History didn’t reveal it to them because I’ve studied Super Bowl impacts and there is nothing in the record of economic activity that suggests this. I’d bet the mortgage that the Task Force members couldn’t tell us what those numbers mean or how they were estimated.
It’s a good bet because $250 million is so far beyond possibility and the truth is so easily observed that if the Task Force had any clue, they would never make such a claim.
The facts are the National Football League gave the Task Force that figure. It represents a gross exaggeration, and the Task Force should know better than to trust the NFL’s objectivity.
The NFL uses these figures to justify government subsidies to teams including paying $400 million for Raymond James Stadium.
It’s important that we all understand what economic impact means.
Economic impact is merely sales impact. That’s important when economic impact is used to justify government expenditures. The $400 million that taxpayers will pay for RJS and the several million dollars we pay to support the Super Bowl are tax dollars, and every dollar of sales impact generates only about a nickel of tax receipts for local governments.
We need $8 billion of sales impact to pay for RJS and $100 million to pay the cost of hosting the Super Bowl.
The Task Force should do its own work and question whether $250 million worth of sales is reasonable.
Consider that Hillsborough County now sells about $1 billion worth of goods and services in a typical January, roughly $65 million every two days. For us to absorb even 25 percent of the NFL’s claim in two days, we would have to sell twice as much of everything — not just twice as many hotel rooms and restaurant meals, but twice as many cars, boats, refrigerators, television sets, clothing items, stereos, furniture, lawn mowers and weed whackers. Every line in every store would have to be twice as long as usual on Super Bowl weekend.
Consider that Tampa Bay area hotels typically are 80-percent full in late January and that 85 percent is considered fully occupied — so there is not much available space.
With double occupancy, we would have to build 100 large hotels to handle the additional people. Consider that roughly 40,000 people pass through Tampa Bay area airports each day. We’d have to more than double the number of flights at every airport to handle the new influx. It takes nearly 700 jet flights to ferry 100,000 people. If you could somehow manage to land and service an additional plane every six minutes, it would take more than three days to deliver them using the Task Force’s economic impact number as a base.
Tampa already hosted two Super Bowls and Hillsborough County collects data on sales. The Task Force should make its own comparisons.
In January 1991 when Tampa hosted the Super Bowl, Hillsborough County recorded sales of $720 million. It had sales of $727 million the previous January (1990) and $742 million the next January.
In January 1984, when Tampa hosted the Super Bowl, Hillsborough County recorded sales of $472 million. The average for the preceding and following Januarys was $482 million.
And this economic impact evidence is consistent with every Super Bowl.
In Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Minn., and Detroit, and in every Super Bowl in California, sales do not respond to the presence of a Super Bowl.
The NFL’s estimates are wrong and they know it.
OK – it seems that any economic impact may, in fact, be legendary after all. Probably less than the annual economic impact of the arts in our area, and certainly more costly to attract. So much for the fortune. But we still have fame, right?
Well, as Mr. Porter is fond of pointing out, we may have a better chance at infamy than fame. If the game were in another city, we could purchase a TV spot and make our pitch. Not so with the game here. Anyone remember Bamboleo?
In 1991, as the world watched, Tampa’s white elite showed their true color by refusing to let any black folk take part in the Gasparilla Parade , which had been scheduled to coincide with the Super Bowl that year. (Actually, several people of color were slated to march - carrying shovels behind the horses.)
The parade was called off, Bamboleo was cobbled together at the last minute as a lame ass substitute, and promptly ignored by everyone, especially these people.
In the late 1980s, early in her term as mayor, Freedman found herself ducking for cover under a table at the Tampa Yacht Club while some of Tampa’s most prominent citizens — dressed as pirates for a pre-Gasparilla luncheon — mischievously hurled volleys of food and silverware at each other.
The people making the mess had been drinking. They were white, moneyed and male. The people who would have to clean it up, Freedman noticed, were all black.
“You could just see the disgust, the disillusionment” on those workers’ faces, she said.
The experience crystallized Freedman’s qualms about Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the 750-member, all-male social club — then exclusively white — that sponsors Tampa’s biggest one-day outdoor event, the annual Gasparilla invasion and parade. In 1990, Freedman decided to pull police support and clean-up service for the parade — which had cost the city $30,000 — because of its all-white membership.
That was a painful year for the Krewe, a national embarrassment that members don’t like to talk about. With the parade moved to coincide with Super Bowl XXV in January 1991, the Krewe came under fire for its exclusivity from the National Football League and an ad hoc group of local activists called the Coalition of African-American Organizations, which demanded that the Krewe integrate. Rather than immediately open its doors to blacks, the Krewe canceled the party.
After the 1991 Gasparilla parade was scuttled, the city scrambled to come up with a substitute. The result was Bamboleo, a multicultural festival, which flopped. People missed the pirates. The next year, the Krewe accepted two blacks into its ranks, then four.
There are plenty of other examples too.
Porter recalled that some of the press coverage of this year’s Super Bowl in Jacksonville focused on how quiet and boring that city is, while the 2001 Super Bowl in Tampa generated coverage of local strip clubs and lap dances.
“You are exposing your community, but the exposure may be good or bad,” he said. “It’s not “priceless,’ and it’s not advertising.”
……
“It means a whole helluva lot of money for this area,” said Joe Redner, owner of several Tampa strip clubs. Previous Super Bowl weekends have been his biggest moneymakers. “We raise the prices, and we have more people. It’s just a bonanza.”
Actually, Joe Redner is one of the best things that Tampa has going for it, so if the game benefits him, then it may well benefit the rest of us just through his community minded largess. Ironically, Tampa’s civic leaders spend countless government resources unconstitutionally legislating morality just to fight Joe, despite the fact that his world famous Mons Venus probably provides a greater economic impact than the handful of football games that the Bucs play at home every year in their shiny taxpayer financed stadium. We should be building Joe a new strip club with luxury skyboxes. But I digress.
Fans at the 2001 game were reportedly happy with the strip clubs and lap dances, but many took offense when it was learned that big brother was watching them watch the game.
the Tampa Police Department employed a recently developed surveillance system to take pictures of all those entering Raymond James Stadium for Sunday’s Super Bowl. The ACLU believes this activity raises serious concerns about the Fourth Amendment right of all citizens to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.
……
Reports indicate that the Tampa police digitized the facial images and checked them electronically with databases maintained by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.
Among the many things that are not clear about this program is whether the images were checked against those who have a record of a criminal conviction or databases that include records of those law enforcement agencies regard as criminal suspects. Reports of the use of this surveillance technology also indicate that the same technology has recently been installed for use in the Ybor City section of Tampa.
We fully understand that while everyone has a reduced expectation of privacy while in public, including sitting in the stands with one’s family at a Sunday afternoon football game, we do not believe that the public understands or accepts that they will be subjected to a computerized police lineup as a condition of admission.
The Ybor technology alluded to in the ACLU letter was the infamous FACE-IT system. Tampa was leading the Orwellian bandwagon back then.
Still, I suppose the contention can be made that any publicity is good – if Tampa’s name is getting out there, then we will benefit in the long run. And we may find a nice niche by targeting the aging paranoid racists who would trade civil liberties for the illusion of security demographic, but I’m just not swayed by those arguments.
And I’m getting tired, so I’ll wrap up this rambling reality based screed by pointing out an interesting coincidence that may imply that maybe, just maybe, the fix was in and we didn’t really have to be the biggest whore in the contest just to get fucked by the NFL.
It was May 1987, one week before the host city for Super Bowl XXV was to be announced at a press conference in San Diego, and Walter Baldwin’s heart had just dropped to his stomach.
Baldwin, chairman of Tampa’s Super Bowl Task Force, had learned that a key player in Tampa’s bid, Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse, was going to skip the press conference to vacation in China.
Baldwin panicked. How could the home team’s owner miss the announcement? He called Culverhouse. “What have you done?” he yelled.
Apparently, Culverhouse knew something Baldwin didn’t. “Don’t worry about it,” he said calmly. “It’s all taken care of.”
And in 2005,
when Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl committee officially revealed Tuesday its bid to host the Super Bowl in 2009, the panel that met the media at Raymond James Stadium was missing a key player - a member of the Glazer family, which owns the Buccaneers.
Neither Malcolm Glazer nor sons Bryan, Joel and Edward appeared among the tourism and political officials to voice their support for Tampa’s bid.
Oooh!
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The Tampa City Council may soon be known as the the thirty one percenters.
City council members on Thursday stopped short of giving themselves a $9,500 raise.
But they did decide to give the 2007 council $9,500 pay increases.
What barely was mentioned, however, is that several of the seven council members could return in 2007.
“It’s not that we’re being selfish,” Councilwoman Mary Alvarez said. “We deserve it, for God’s sake.”
Council members earn an annual salary of $30,742. Council positions are considered part time. The increase will boost salaries 31 percent to $40,250.
Several council members plan to run for re-election.
Councilman Shawn Harrison announced he is running for a citywide seat. Councilman John Dingfelder intends to run to keep his District 4 seat. Councilwoman Rose Ferlita, who faces term limits in her citywide seat, is contemplating a run against Dingfelder for the district seat. Councilwomen Gwen Miller and Linda Saul-Sena intend to run again for their citywide seats.
Council members serve four-year terms.
Councilman Kevin White announced he is running for a Hillsborough County Commission seat.
Alvarez is being forced out by term limits and does not intend to seek a different seat.
She joined Harrison in casting the two dissenting votes against the pay increase. Ferlita was absent for the final vote.
Alvarez voted no because she said if she has to fight for a pay raise, so should the next council.
So, how does one justify raising one’s salary by a third? Read on…
“We have a backlog of developers trying to get on the schedule,” White said. “Council members frequently request extra workshops, extra meetings. The dedications, the ceremonies, the ribbon-cuttings…
Oh.
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I don’t like Wal-Mart . They’re union-busting peddlers of cheap, plastic shit manufactured in third world sweat shops.
So the news that they wont be building a store near Ybor City near Ybor City anytime soon is good – anything is better than a Wal-Mart. But they’re not just gonna go away, and I fear that the next site chosen may well be much more objectionable than the gritty, industrial area that was recently under consideration.
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and a company not used to being on the losing end of a deal, has been trumped by a little- known California company in an intense bidding war for prime property near Ybor City.
Wednesday morning, Wal- Mart said it was in negotiations for the 30-acre site where it intended to build a Supercenter.
But by late afternoon, an executive with Panattoni Development LLC of Sacramento said his company had signed a contract to purchase the International Center at the southeast corner of Adamo Drive and 22nd Street. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“I know Wal-Mart is hot on the property,” said Moses Salcido, Panattoni’s senior development manager. “But it has more potential than just putting a Wal-Mart store there.”
The company says it’s looking into several development options for the land.
Wal-Mart officials said they were shocked at the sudden collapse of their plans.
“Wow,” said Wal-Mart Spokesman Eric Brewer, who paused to collect his thoughts. “If they have a contract, they have a contract. We certainly feel Tampa is an underserved market, and we’ll keep evaluating where we can go in the area.”
Act locally: Wake Up Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart Ybor deal collapses
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Gangs of roving white thugs are invading a dirt poor neighborhood near downtown Tampa, intending to force the elderly and poor form their homes while turning a nice profit along the way.
A selection committee on Tuesday chose three developers to prepare detailed plans on rebuilding the Tampa Housing Authority’s rundown Central Park Village just north of downtown.
The committee, made up of representatives from the Housing Authority, the city and Hillsborough County, received six responses to its request for qualifications from developers.
……
The 28-acre Central Park is strategically located between Ybor City and the north end of downtown Tampa, which is in the midst of a residential and commercial redevelopment boom.
City leaders want to see Central Park redeveloped to blend into the surrounding neighborhood.
The concept sounds good at first: raze the blighted public housing project and erect a mixed income development in its place. That way, residents who are currently living in unbelievably shabby conditions will have a chance to inhabit dwellings with proper plumbing and even air conditioning.
Some kind of change is way overdue, but the problem lies with the dispossessed. See, whenever we start rebuilding the ghettos, affordable housing units are invariably lost, and residents are scattered to the wind , many never to return to their old neighborhood.
Critics of HOPE VI have long complained that the program is contributing to a shortage of affordable housing by tearing down more units than it rebuilds. Tougher readmission standards make it harder for former residents to get back in.
Across the country, as few as 11 percent of former residents are living in neighborhoods that have been revitalized by HOPE VI developments, according to a study last year by the National Housing Law Project.
Many of the displaced residents are not much better off than when they moved out several years ago. Many live in poor neighborhoods with higher crime than the rest of the county, like they did before. Many are still unemployed, still on welfare. Their credit is still bad, and so is their health.
“You didn’t solve their problems,” said Larry Keating, an expert in public housing policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “You just swapped out a better class of poor people.”
HOPE VI is no longer funding new projects, but Tampa’s hope for Central Park Village is for a HOPE VI type project, blending “affordable” housing with “market rate” units and aiming for a mix of lower and middle income residents.
The new project will undoubtedly be “nicer” than what’s there now – bleak cinder block apartments built as temporary housing for troops during World War II, but current residents who are thoughtlessly cheering the coming demise of their homes don’t seem to realize that the new construction is not meant for them .
“I think they should tear it down quick, fast and in a hurry,” said Elaine Forbes, 24, who lives there with her 4- year-old daughter.
Forbes said she does not know where she would go if forced to move. She has heard rumors that residents may be offered federal “Section 8” vouchers to find housing elsewhere, but is skeptical.
She added that many older residents are frightened about having to relocate.
“If we had somewhere to go, we wouldn’t be here in the first place,” Forbes said.
I hope she’s not counting on having someplace to go anytime soon. The last big idea for this area, Ed Turanchik’s plan to take over the world, called for 6 percent of the new units to be set aside for the poorest residents. They were going to evict over 2,000 low income residents and build only 257 public housing residences in a 4,500 unit project.
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The FBI is looking into the latest death of a black St. Petersburg youth at the hands of police.
Agents have sent a letter to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office requesting reports involving the April 12 shooting in St. Petersburg, as well as witness statements, photographs, videos, audio recordings, medical records and other material.
“We are cooperating fully with this investigation,” Sgt. Jim Bordner, sheriff’s spokesman, said Tuesday.
A similar letter has been sent to the St. Petersburg Police Department asking for documents or evidence relating to a search warrant officers executed March 15 at Walker’s home on 16th Avenue S.
The Sheriff’s Office said that raid, which netted drugs and several handguns, justified the SWAT tactics on April 12, including use of a flash-bang device to disorient people inside Walker’s home.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker said the city will cooperate with the federal investigation. “If the FBI feels it is necessary to investigate, it’s appropriate for them to do that,” he said.
……
On Monday a sheriff’s review panel found Taylor, 33, complied with agency policy and training “as currently written.” Sheriff Jim Coats still has to review the report and could suggest policy changes or punishment for Taylor. The deputy said Walker slid to the floor during the raid, appeared to be searching for something under a couch and refused repeated commands to show his hands.
A review of the case by State Attorney Bernie McCabe said Taylor fired twice, striking Walker in the back. Though McCabe cleared Taylor of criminal wrongdoing, he said in a report, “I cannot help but note that this is another relatively young black male who has met his death at the hands of law enforcement in Pinellas County” and urged the Sheriff’s Office to review its policy on use of deadly force.
Walker was unarmed, though the Sheriff’s Office said a loaded handgun was found nearby. His mother and others say Taylor was close enough to use physical restraint rather than his gun.
……
“Jarrell Walker should be alive and facing a judge or jury to determine his culpability,” Rouson said.
……
Chimurenga Waller, a leader with the Uhuru movement, pointed to the low prosecution rate of civil rights cases. “We support the demand but we’re not going to be taken off course by assuming the FBI would make a ruling that is favorable to the African people.”
The Uhurus said they have planned their own court-style hearing for July 24. The group has issued demands that Deputy Taylor, Sheriff Coats, Chief Harmon and McCabe attend.
Isn’t it funny how the drug laws always seem to disproportionately affect the poor and minority members of a community…
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When I first heard about the compromise last night, I was livid. It seems to me that the Republicans can back out at the merest whiff of a fight that they deem less than extraordinary and that we’ll be right back where we just were – in other words, Dems got nothing. Also, backing down on Owen, Brown and Pryor strikes me as spineless.
Further contemplation, though, along with rumors that one or more of the 3 may well lose on a straight floor vote (thanks to deals cut with moderates during negotiations) and, especially, the vitriolic reaction of the right wing has led me to the conclusion that this compromise, while not my first choice, may not be as bad as I originally feared.
A Last-Minute Deal on Judicial Nominees
On the more difficult issue of future judicial fights, the memo’s signers vowed to filibuster nominees only “under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.” The paragraph retaining the right to filibuster — considered the pact’s most difficult question — states: “In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress,” which extends through 2006.
Several Democrats quickly declared victory, saying the language left Republicans no room to ban judicial filibusters. “The nuclear option is off the table,” Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) said on the Senate floor, moments after the negotiators announced their deal at a crowded news conference.
In a sharp comment aimed at the White House, Reid said: “Abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over. We are a separate and equal branch of government. That is our Founding Fathers’ vision, and one we hold dear.”
But Republicans said they are free to back a ban if they believe Democrats act in bad faith and filibuster a nominee whose credentials do not amount to an “extraordinary” circumstance. “We don’t think we’re going to get there,” said Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), adding that he will not hesitate to vote to ban judicial filibusters if he concludes the Democrats are abusing the right.
MyDD :: Republican Blog and Netroots Reaction to The Deal
More reaction, from Crooks and Liars
“Gary Bauer Calls Senate Judicial Deal a ‘Sell Out’”
Former Presidential Candidate Gary Bauer issued the following statement late Monday as news of the “travesty” to justice deal on stalled judicial nominees was released.
The President of American Values said: “This is a sad day for our nation. The desire of millions of Americans to restore balance to our federal courts has been thwarted behind closed doors by 14 senators. Only three of President Bush’s appointees are guaranteed an up or down vote under this sell out.
“Under this agreement it is now more likely that radical social change will continue to be forced on the American people by liberal courts committed to same sex marriage, abortion on demand and hostility to religious expression. The Republicans who lent their names to this travesty have undercut their President as well as millions of their most loyal voters. Shame on them all.”
“Dobson Blasts Filibuster ‘Betrayal’”
“This Senate agreement represents a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans and a great victory for united Democrats. Only three of President Bush’s nominees will be given the courtesy of an up-or-down vote, and it’s business as usual for all the rest. The rules that blocked conservative nominees remain in effect, and nothing of significance has changed. Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations. The unconstitutional filibuster survives in the arsenal of Senate liberals.
“We are grateful to Majority Leader Frist for courageously fighting to defend the vital principle of basic fairness. That principle has now gone down to defeat. We share the disappointment, outrage and sense of abandonment felt by millions of conservative Americans who helped put Republicans in power last November. I am certain that these voters will remember both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust.”
So, anything that pisses of Dobson and Bauer and Frist must not be all bad. But the compromise may be too fragile to hold, and many on the left also feel that it is far from a desirable outcome.
This is not a good deal for the U.S. Senate or for the American people. Democrats should have stood together firmly against the bullying tactics of the Republican leadership abusing their power as they control both houses of Congress and the White House. Confirming unacceptable judicial nominations is simply a green light for the Bush administration to send more nominees who lack the judicial temperament or record to serve in these lifetime positions. I value the many traditions of the Senate, including the tradition of bipartisanship to forge consensus. I do not, however, value threatening to disregard an important Senate tradition, like occasional unlimited debate, when necessary. I respect all my colleagues very much who thought to end this playground squabble over judges, but I am disappointed in this deal.
Josh Marshall gets the last word.
the whole tenor of the Republican ultras on the Hill today is to demand unimpeded power, to push past conventions and limits, to go for everything. And here they got turned back. A sensible Republican party might be satisfied to have gotten three of its nominees — numerically speaking, they did fairly well. But this whole enterprise was based on wanting it all, on not accepting limits, on rejecting government by even a modicum of consensus with a sizeable minority party. They got stopped short. And the senate Republican leadership is undermined.
So this isn’t a pleasant compromise. But precisely because the Republicans — or their leading players — are absolutists in a way the Democrats are not, I think this compromise will batter them more than it will the minority party, which is after all a minority party which nonetheless managed to emerge from this having fought the stronger force to something like a draw.
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Continuing today’s theme of men of high morals, people who are not afraid to buck the status quo in order to do or say what’s right, we turn to the Florida judicial system, where we find an uncommonly qualified Judge who is being hounded by liberal do-gooders determined to tarnish his reputation by spreading truthful and well documented “reports” concerning his admirable conduct from the bench.
This brave man, Circuit Judge Richard Albritton, brilliantly required one defendant to attend church as a condition of probation. When bleeding heart ACLU types started whining about the constitution, Albritton bitch slapped the hippies: “I know that’s wrong, but the defendant doesn’t know it.”
Albritton is well known for his support of women. For instance, he hands out lighter sentences for cute young things, and he readily dispenses fatherly counseling and advice with questions and statements such as:
“I think you should get a 40 hour a week job.”
“What are your drugs of choice?”
“Women should be at home with the kids.”
He told one particular defendant to close her legs and stop having babies, jailed a pregnant teen for refusing to divulge identity of the father, and jailed a woman for not knowing her current address, all actions which illustrate his paternal love for the wayward members of the weaker sex who find themselves in the unfortunate position of appearing before him.
As for black folk, well, the only person Judge Dick calls by their first name in his courtroom is Tara Melton. Dick is tight with Tara, because, in his words, “your people”, “black people” helped get him elected. Now, some would twist his use of Tara’s first name as condescending, but his obvious love of the colored should put those silly fears to rest.
So, we have an obviously qualified Judge who wisely wields his traditional Christian values to helpfully steer weaker individuals back onto the path which they were always meant to occupy. Whether she knows it or not, a woman can only be truly happy when she is at home squirting out babies and baking, bowing to the will of her intellectually superior husband and blissfully thanking God for her lucky lot in life, and Judge Dick is being attacked primarily for speaking these common sense truths.
A judge who told a woman to close her legs and stop having babies and ordered another defendant to attend church as a condition of probation could be disciplined by the Florida Supreme Court.
The actions were among a list of incidents of allegedly inappropriate behavior by Circuit Judge Richard Albritton that the state Judicial Qualifications Commission reported to the court this week.
The JQC alleged that Albritton humiliated females in his courtroom. He told an 18-year-old woman how attractive she was before giving her a lighter sentence than he would normally hand out. He often told women, including attorneys, “Women should be at home with their kids,” the charges said.
A Department of Children and Families attorney who is black said Albritton told her, “Your people helped me get elected.”
Albritton’s attorney, Harry Harper, said the judge has no gender or race bias. He called the charges “mystifying.”
Posted as Culture war, Florida
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