September 30, 2004
Doddering old fool lacks competence to run elections
Let’s face it: Jeb! appointee Buddy Johnson should go back to running restaurants, because he obviously lacks the skill and knowledge necessary to run Hillsborough County’s elections.
Buddy doesn’t know much about computers, but he knows what Jeb! wants him to say, and he’s been touting the company line ever since he was appointed by the Governor to replace newly elected Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.
Back in February, BlogWood readers learned that Buddy was exhibiting a stunning lack of concern about the increasingly well documented problems inherent in these machines.
It would take ``an unbelievable conspiracy'' to breach the security of the machines, which replaced punch-card ballots used in 2000, Johnson said.
As I pointed out in that February post, security is not the only concern, seeing as Hillsborough County’s machines use Microsoft software. Any one who has ever used Windows knows that Microsoft software is buggy. It crashes. It was also never designed for secure vote counting, but Buddy’s Rumsfeldian outlook on democracy conveniently allows for some wiggle room:
"There's never been a perfect election," Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson said. "And there never will be."
Well, elections may not be perfect, but wouldn’t perfection be a good goal to strive for?
Regardless of his goal, Buddy dropped the ball repeatedly during the primary. First, Buddy’s infallible computers failed, causing a huge delay in the counting of the vote. Next, 245 votes from one precinct were lost. Then, Buddy had to have a reporter point out to him the fact that he had the wrong vote totals posted on his official county website since whenever he figured out what he wanted the final tally to be.
Now, to be fair, Buddy has blamed most of these problems on human error rather than computer glitches. I guess that means that Buddy is admitting to administrative incompetence, but is standing by the integrity of the voting machines, although he may not have made that leap of logic himself quite yet.
That brings us up to date, more or less, and sets the stage for today’s confirmation that Buddy is a doddering old fool.
Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said Wednesday that steps had been taken earlier this year to reduce a security risk in the county's touch-screen voting system detailed in a Tampa Tribune article this week.The flaw could have enabled vote totals to be manipulated, leaving little trace, according to computer security experts.
Johnson said security measures were installed to diminish the risk in Hillsborough County after a widely distributed report commissioned by Ohio elections officials late last year first identified the potential problem. Pinellas County elections officials rely on similar security measures for their touch-screen voting machines.
In interviews with the Tribune last week, Johnson did not mention the protective measures taken by his office when asked about the potential security risk.
He said Wednesday that he misunderstood the Tribune's questions and thought the newspaper was referring to a newer report. In a written response published on today's Our Opinion page, Johnson explained: ``I believed that your reporter was referencing some new information, not a report published in November 2003.''
The Tribune, however, had provided Johnson - at his request - a copy of the report in question four days before the story was published Tuesday.
The report, and another by computer science Professor Douglas W. Jones for Miami- Dade County, warns that computers equipped with elements of the popular Microsoft Office suite software package can be used to manipulate vote totals without leaving a record because it shares the same database format as the touch-screen voting equipment.
Because of that risk, Ohio forbids computers equipped with the software to be used in election-night headquarters where votes from touch- screen machines are being tabulated. The report describes the likelihood of anyone abusing the security weakness as ``low'' but rates its potential effect as ``high.''
In his written response to the Tribune's Page 1 story, Johnson said his office had taken ``management control measures'' to reduce the risk identified in the Ohio report.
Among the measures implemented in Hillsborough County to guard against the risk, Johnson said in an interview, are allowing many onlookers inside the ``clean room'' where the computers are used to tabulate votes on election night and limiting access to supervisory functions on the computers.
Similar steps have been taken by Pinellas County, which also uses touch-screen voting systems produced by Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems. Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor of the third Florida county to use the system, Palm Beach, could not be reached.
The Ohio report identified Microsoft Access, its flagship database program, as the focus of its concern.
A Sequoia spokesman said the company believes security measures taken by Johnson are sufficient to guard against the danger.
Jones, a member of Iowa's voting systems certification team and a consultant in jurisdictions scattered throughout the nation, said he would prefer that Microsoft Office suite and Access in particular be removed from computers used to tabulate votes.
In conversations with the newspaper last week, Johnson said the Microsoft Office suite security concern was a surprise to him and he would have to research the issue before addressing it.
Johnson also criticized the newspaper's use of the report commissioned by Miami- Dade because it applies to a voting system produced by Omaha, Neb.-based Electronic Systems and Software Inc.
Jones, the author of that report, said his comments on the Microsoft Office suite danger apply equally to systems produced by Sequoia Voting Systems such as the one in Hillsborough.
So, Buddy feels that there are so many security questions that he can’t keep up with them all, or maybe he thinks that everything is just fine, or perhaps these new-fangled computer thingys are just too fancy for anyone to fully comprehend, but, hey, the screens are right purdy, and things happen when you touch them, just like an ATM, only you don’t get a receipt, which really makes them better than an ATM, right?.
Obviously, Buddy’s chief qualification for this job was his political support of Jeb!. When counting votes, he feels that a ballpark estimate is good enough, which actually logically leads to his idea that posting accurate totals is not necessarily important.
He thinks that computers are infallible, except when they’re not, but, again, let’s not try to introduce accuracy into the election, ‘cause that might be hard to do.
Finally, it’s becoming crystal clear that his non-techincal management of his office is less than adequate, especially if one takes him at his word that most of the recent glitches were caused by human error.
Happily, we can vote Jeb!’s Buddy out this November. Send a message that votes are important and that a paper trail is key to transparent and auditable elections.
Rob Mckenna is running against Buddy. Rob understands computers, he knows how to count, and he wants to bring some integrity to our electoral process.
September 29, 2004
GOP dirty tricks aimed at suppressing vote
Remember one thing: George Bush , his brother Jeb!, and the rest of the Republican party will stop at nothing to win. They will walk all over the constitution, they will bend and break rules. They will intimidate and lie and use every means at their disposal to suppress votes, and those means include armed state agents.
Here in Tampa, we recently learned that a traditionally black church is being targeted by the IRS simply because Democrat Janet Reno stopped there during a campaign for governor 2 years ago. Campaign stops at churches are traditional and very legal. The church has curtailed all political activity until the investigation is over. My bet is that the investigation will end on November 3.
In Orlando, there are two separate and very questionable investigations in progress that are succeeding in chilling the activities of traditionally Democratic organizers. The case of Ezzie Thomas, Orlando’s “Absentee Ballot King,” drags on, with empty allegations of fraud being thrown around, and agents fingering their sidearms and spouting vague tales of criminal activity while visiting the homes of black absentee voters.
The lesson: vote, and you will be investigated, possibly prosecuted. Don’t vote, and you will be left alone.
Local politicians call him the absentee ballot king.Before each election, Ezzie Thomas appears at the homes of hundreds of black voters and picks up their absentee ballots.
In a predominately black Orlando neighborhood, it seems everyone knows the 73-year-old Thomas. He was the local television repair man for years, extending credit to black residents when no one else would.
But now Thomas' tactics in the spring Orlando mayoral election are at the center of a controversy that once again has put Florida elections in the national spotlight. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated Thomas, closed its case, then reopened it. Now the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are investigating the FDLE investigation.
Critics of Thomas' methods argue they are illegal and give Democrats an edge. Critics of the FDLE investigation say all candidates go after absentee ballots like Thomas does and call the probe an attempt to scare black residents into not voting in November, which would help Republicans.
"If there was evidence of widespread absentee ballot fraud, I don't think anyone would question their right to investigate," said Democratic lawyer Joseph Egan, who wonders why the FDLE would focus so hard on someone like Thomas.
......In early June, FDLE agents began knocking on voters' doors in Lake Mann Homes, a public housing complex on Orlando's west side.
When they first stopped by Hattie Bowman's house, she wasn't home. So agents questioned her 9-year-old daughter. They wanted to know where mom was, who she was with, what type of car she drove.
When Bowman returned, she could see firearms under the agents' coats. They told her they were conducting a criminal investigation.
"When they said "criminal,' I said, "Oh my God,"' Bowman said. They wanted to ask her 19 questions - on tape.
"As scared as I was," she said, "I didn't believe it."
She knew it was legal to vote by absentee ballot. And she did that again during the Aug. 31 primary.
About a mile away, agents asked voter Annie Justice if Thomas bribed her.
"If he bought votes, I want my money," she joked.
The agents didn't frighten her either, she said.
"I am not easily intimidated - believe me," she said.
In late June, Thomas called a news conference to decry the FDLE's tactics. Democratic activists claimed scores of voters were too scared to vote absentee.
"There are African-Americans who believe that if you vote absentee, you will have cops showing up at your door," said Egan, the Democratic lawyer.
......Meanwhile, Thomas spends his days behind the screen door of his ranch house. For November's general election, he doesn't plan to collect a single absentee ballot.
Chalk one up for Jeb!.
The Thomas case has garnered national attention, but a lesser known investigation is also paying dividends to the Bush family.
In Orlando, the Florida home of Disneyworld and a vital political battleground, the campaign for the November presidential election is getting sly, nasty and very, very personal. Normally, at this stage of the proceedings, Ezzie Thomas, a well-known character on the predominantly African-American west side of town, would be out chatting to the people, registering them to vote before the 4 October deadline and helping them with absentee ballots if they do not think they will have time to make it to the polls on election day. But the 73-year-old Mr Thomas, an affable ladies' man, is staying out of public view for fear of exacerbating what is already a highly controversial - and highly political - criminal investigation of his election-related activities.A similarly low profile is being taken by Steve Clelland, the head of the local firefighters' union. Last week, he did not even dare attend a local appearance by John Kerry, the candidate he is supporting for President, in case it added to the legal troubles facing his own organisation. The firefighters are also subject to a criminal investigation, the chief allegation - for which no evidence has been produced - being that they colluded with City Hall to set up an illegal slush fund for political campaigning.
What makes the troubles facing the two men particularly sinister is that they are declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party. The investigations are being conducted by the state police, known as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), which reports directly to Governor Jeb Bush, brother of President George Bush.
The Republicans, naturally, deny the investigations are politically motivated. But even they acknowledge that a chill has spread through Orlando's overwhelmingly Democratic black voting community after a flurry of unannounced visits by armed state police to at least 52 homes whose mostly elderly residents had signed up for an absentee ballot with Mr Thomas's help.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong. The media has aired official allegations ranging from vote fraud to campaign finance irregularities to racketeering, but no charges have been brought, despite exhaustive investigations. A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case.
......One added wrinkle is that Orlando's mayor, Buddy Dyer, is one of only two prominent Democratic public officials along the I-4 corridor. Clearly, if he is discredited, the Democrats will be deprived of a vital figurehead in the run-up to 2 November. As it turns out, he is directly implicated in both of the FDLE's investigations. The intrigue began with Mr Dyer's election last March. It was a two-round election, but Mr Dyer finished with just over the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a run-off. His closest opponent, a Republican called Ken Mulvaney, cried foul, saying the 234-vote margin putting Mr Dyer over the threshold was fraudulent.
Since Mr Mulvaney's campaign manager was a prominent local talk-radio host called Doug Guetzloe, his allegations had a wide airing. But most of them, if not all, were demonstrably untrue. Mr Guetzloe claimed illegal absentee votes had been faxed into the elections supervisor's office, but the office accepts only originals. He also said people had been paid for their votes, but offered no evidence of this.
The greatest suspicion fell on Ezzie Thomas, because he had personally witnessed applications for 270 absentee ballots, a figure big enough to force a run-off election if it could be shown the votes were fraudulent. The city attorney's office cross-checked the signatures on the absentee ballots with the original application forms and concluded they were valid. Intriguingly, the FDLE did the same thing and stated, in a letter written to the state attorney in Orlando in May, that there was "no basis to support the allegations" and that the case should be considered closed.
"They've been trying to explain away that letter ever since," said one senior city employee who did not wish to be identified. Something caused the FDLE to change its mind, because in early June uniformed officers began knocking on doors and asking threatening questions of dozens of black voters who had been in contact with Mr Thomas. Several said the FDLE officers took off their jackets and exposed their firearms while questioning them. In at least one case, the officer crossed his legs and tapped a 9mm pistol sitting in an ankle holster while he asked detailed questions about the interviewee's reasons for voting absentee. (Absentee voting is a choice under Florida law, so one can wonder about the line of questioning.)
......As it happens, Mr Thomas had been been hired before by Republican candidates to perform exactly the same services he provided for Mr Dyer, without falling foul of the law. Among his past clients are two names with particular resonance in the 2004 presidential race. One is Mel Martinez, the Bush administration's outgoing Housing Secretary who is now running for the Florida Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Democrat, Bob Graham. (Mr Thomas helped Mr Martinez run for chair of the Orange County commission a few years ago.) And the other is Glenda Hood, who was mayor of Orlando for 12 years before being appointed Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, the office responsible for running Florida's elections.
And Mayor Hood, not Mayor Dyer, allowed the firefighters' union to spend up to $40,000 a year in city funds on political activities. In those days, the firefighters were considered allies of the Republican establishment in Orange County and had endorsed George Bush for President in 2000. But Mr Clelland and his members were deeply disappointed by the White House's failure to follow through on promises to put an extra 100,000 firefighters on American streets and update their equipment. So, in early June, they joined a statewide union vote endorsing Mr Kerry for President in 2004.
Days later, the FDLE, with television cameras in tow, raided City Hall, seized several computers and announced that the union and its so-called "leave bank" were being investigated. The beefy Mr Clelland said he was scared to death in his interview with the FDLE supervisor in Orlando and was told he might be slung into jail if he insisted on having his lawyer present. He duly asked Mr Egan to leave the room.
Like the black absentee voters, Mr Clelland also noticed the officer tapping the 9mm pistol in his ankle holster as he let loose his barrage of questions. "You would think these investigators were going after John Gotti [the late Mafia don]," he said bitterly. "Their actions have gutted this organisation locally." After the grand jury ruled that the union leave bank was legal, Mayor Dyer asked Florida's attorney general for a ruling to get the FDLE off their backs. But Mayor Dyer's bad luck was that he had run for the office of attorney general in 2002, and his successful Republican opponent, Charlie Crist, was not about to cut him any slack. Mr Crist has refused to offer an opinion either way.
......Orlando is also in a state of major flux. For years, the big citrus farmers, as well as the land developers who came in Disneyworld's wake, made it a reliable Republican stronghold. Then an influx of low-wage service workers, including a growing tide of immigrants from Puerto Rico, changed its complexion.
The Republicans were shocked when Al Gore beat George Bush in Orange County in the presidential race in 2000, and vowed not to be taken by surprise again. The party identified the Puerto Ricans - many from middle-class backgrounds back home - as the key constituency and set to work to win over as many as possible.
......With workers from both parties rushing to register as many voters as possible while there is still time, the race remains nerve-rackingly close, close enough that the votes controlled by Ezzie Thomas and the firefighters might just make the crucial difference.
So, after the election, there will be much hand wringing and soul searching and Jeb!’s office will issue a non-apology, saying that the Jeb!’s jack booted thugs were just protecting the integrity of the election and if they intimidated any coloreds into not voting, well, of course, that was never their intent, and it’s not their fault if things worked out that way...
Successful campaigns rely on grass roots organization. Getting supporters to actually cast a ballot is perhaps the single most important duty of local activists. Regardless of the international attention that the bogus Orlando investigations are garnering, the Republican party has already met its goal of suppressing the vote through old-fashioned state-sponsored intimidation.
More on the Ezzie Thomas case.
More on GOP voter suppression.
September 28, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
Get Up with MorningWood, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am (eastern) every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239- WMNF WOOD
Marathon
Yes, WMNF has had a buttload of pledge drives this year, and MorningWood has been involved in all of them. This is the last one for a while, and absolutely the last one this year. This time, we need money strictly for day to day operations. We’ll worry about the new building later.
To volunteer to help out during Marathon, call or email Gene Moore. (813-238-8001) or call me in the studio this morning: 813-239-WOOD.
Marathon runs from October 1 through October 8. Please support MorningWood with your pledge on Tuesday, October 5.
Blogging on the radio
Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has said Florida lacks "some basic international requirements for a fair election" and a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco "seems likely".Mr Carter said reforms recommended after the recount in Florida had still not been implemented "because of inadequate funding or political disputes".
Mr Carter, who runs an election and human rights centre in Atlanta, accused election officials working for Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, the president's brother, of being "highly partisan".
They were "brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process".
"The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair," Mr Carter writes in a commentary reprinted in today's Guardian.
......Mr Carter was a member of a commission that recommended modernising the state's voting equipment, but he says today those reforms have been patchy. The new computer voting machines have raised questions over the possibility of tampering, but there are no statewide regulations on the use of a paper backup record of the vote in the event of another recount.
Mr Carter argues the right to uniform, reliable voting procedures is a requirements for a fair election by international standards. However, he writes: "There are disturbing signs that once again ... some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms."
Meanwhile, an appeals court has just revived a lawsuit that demands a paper trail for every Florida voter:
Florida's election system, ridiculed and maligned during the 2000 presidential election and then rebuilt with new technology, was thrown into chaos again Monday with five weeks to go before Election Day.A federal appeals court in Atlanta reversed a lower-court judge and ordered him to hear a lawsuit that demands voters be given paper receipts when they use touch-screen voting machines so there is a paper trail in a close election.
The court's decision is vindication for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, the Palm Beach County Democrat who filed the lawsuit, and a potential nightmare for election officials in the 15 counties that use the ATM-style equipment, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.
......Regardless of whether Wexler wins his lawsuit in court, state officials said Monday that they will now draw up an emergency rule requiring touch-screen counties to do manual recounts in close elections -- a startling turnaround, because the state fought for months to bar such recounts.
......This latest controversy comes as Florida is under renewed criticism.
In a stinging opinion piece in The Washington Post, former President Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center has monitored 50 elections worldwide, argued that ''some basic international requirements for a fair election'' are missing in Florida.
Among them, he said, are paper ballots and a nonpartisan electoral commission. Carter said that ``Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority.''
HOOD AND HARRIS
Carter likened Hood to her predecessor, Katherine Harris, who co-chaired President Bush's state campaign while overseeing the 2000 recount.
''The same strong bias has become evident,'' Carter said of Hood, blaming her for a flawed list of felons who were to be purged from voter rolls. The list contained the names of 22,000 blacks -- likely to vote Democratic -- but just 61 Hispanics, who in Florida tend to vote Republican, Carter said. He called the list a ''fumbling attempt'' to disqualify blacks.
Also on MorningWood today:
Revolution, rain, and the return of the remix or mashup: an amalgamation of two or more songs, often combing the lyrics of one with the instrumental part of the other. Today, a brand new very cool mashup that I found on Skippy. It mixes two songs plus a surprise bonus vocalist.
Anyway, a few years ago, mashups were all the rage for a week or two, and I played lots of ‘em, sometimes dedicating an entire 2 or 3 hour show. This morning, I’ll feature a couple of old favorites along with the brand new not to be missed “imagine...walk on the wild side”.
Also this morning, another cool downloadable find - Billionaires foe Bush has teamed up with rappers Felonious Axe and 50 Billion to produce this rich video and mp3.
Billionaires for Bush will be starting a Florida Tour very soon and MAY be in Tampa this weekend - events are actually being rescheduled right now due to all of the hurricanes. Check back here for more details as they become available.
Revolution and rain will fill in the rest of MorningWood - freeform political radio. Tune in and listen up.
Playlists
Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.
Live playlist (May be down due to power outage)
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
September 27, 2004
Que sera sera...
This one was different. No boarding up, no lines at gas stations, no rumors of rationing. Just another hurricane: flickering power, trees down, water intrusion. Yawn. Whatever.
Of course, here in Tampa, we got to watch the storm weaken and eventually turn north, thus sparing us from serious calamity yet again. And don’t get me wrong - there was plenty of wind and rain, but I truly feel that people were more or less resigned to their fates for this one.
Or maybe it was just pure disbelief.
Personally, I’m starting to wonder if there might just be something to those far-out tin foil hat theories about the government controlling the weather.
Collectively , the storms have completely buried any local campaign coverage, and have allowed the Bush bros. to step to the fore with lots of photo ops and butt loads of government cash. Kerry, meanwhile, has shied away from the state, lest he appear to be taking advantage of a natural disaster.
Here’s a hint: heavy duty aluminum foil works best for blocking alien radio waves, but the thinner, less expensive rolls are much more stylish and make for more comfortable headgear in the Florida heat. Shop wisely.
September 23, 2004
Wingers hijack progressive Florida Politics blog
UPDATE - Another missive from FP, this one via
Flablog:
Last week, when I began having problems posting to my web site, Florida Politics, I advised Blogger of the problem via e-mail. It has been a week, and I have yet to receive a response (understandable enough, they're busy folks).Imagine my surprise this afternoon when I went to Florida Politics (to use some of the links) and found another site in its place.
I can still access the Blogger site (my password and username work), but, as has been the case for the past week, I can't post. I just dropped another e-mail to Blogger, and hope to have the issue resolved soon.
In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that I have no intention of abandoning the Florida Politics site, and will resume as soon as I can figure out what happened. I regret that some of the folks who regularly visit the site will assume I have stopped blogging.
Whatever anyone can do to spread the word as to what has happened will be much appreciated.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please contact me at "flagov@lycos.com".
Thanks,
F.P.
(end update)
###
Florida Politics, an indispensable sight for a slightly progressive take on Florida political news, has been taken over by a bunch of wingers. Here's an update from the real author.
Thanks for the e-mail.
I have been unable to post since last week. I e-mailed Blogger and they said my site had exceeded the size limit, which makes no sense. In the meantime, this new site showed up out of nowhere (and a bunch of wingers, to boot). . . I e-mailed Blogger about the hostile takeover, and am awaiting a response. I don't know what to do until Blogger straightens it out.
It is frustrating because the folks who are regular readers don't know what the heck is going on.
I am trying to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for the concern.
FP
Can any Blogger savvy people help to get to the bottom of this?
The sight in question is flapolitics.blogspot.com
As of now, some of the archive links that I have still work: Florida Politics archive. As you can see, the sight has changed for the worse.
More incompetence from Jeb! appointee Buddy Johnson
What with all the excitement of going to NYC, dealing with numerous hurricanes, and simply trying to keep up with paying the bills, I haven’t chimed in at all on the numerous problems Hillsborough County experienced during our recent primary.
We’ve been getting lots of national press, none of it good, and Hillsborough Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson is on the hot seat. Despite the problems, many, if not all, related to the new touch screen voting machines, Buddy is sticking to his “no paper trail needed here” platform.
First, on election night, Buddy’s brand new computers couldn’t count the votes.
After hours and hours of troubleshooting, the problem was blamed on an indexing error. As a computer person, I know that indexing errors are, perhaps, the single most common cause of database problems. At the very least, indexing is always a prime suspect. Despite this well known fact, it took Buddy’s guys all night to figure out what the problem was.
Incompetence.
Next, votes were lost. 245 votes from one precinct in Tampa were not counted. Buddy blamed this computer related mistake on human error.
``We're very disappointed this happened,'' he said.
Incompetence.
Now, we learn that Buddy has had the wrong vote totals: posted on his official county website since whenever he figured out what he wanted the final tally to be.
For three weeks since the Aug. 31 primary, the Web site of Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson included this obvious contradiction: a total of 118,699 people turned out to vote countywide, while 125,891 voted in the race for state attorney.That's 7,192 more votes than voters.
Did the county's new-fangled touch screen voting machines go haywire and tabulate extra votes? Was there a ballot-stuffing scandal in the race for county prosecutor?
No, it was something even more predictable in the recent history of vote tabulation in Hillsborough County.
It was human error, Johnson said Wednesday.
Johnson's staff somehow underreported the voter turnout on the county elections Web site, and no one noticed it until a St. Petersburg Times reporter brought it to Johnson's attention during an interview Wednesday morning.
"I don't know why it's there," Johnson said after consulting with his staff two different times.
Incompetence.
Funny, how Buddy bends over backwards to describe errors as human. That’s probably because his opponent in the race is a computer consultant, a proven manager who is a strong backer of paper trails for computerized voting machines.
Check out Rob Mackenna, and send Jeb!’s lackey packing this November.
Register NOW to vote - deadline is looming!
Developers' money fuels local races
Surprise: DINO (Democrat in Name Only) Hillsborough County Commission candidate, the self-appointed moralist Bob Buckhorn, is being backed by developers and Republicans. His opponent, ex homo-erotic wrestler Brian Blair, is getting money from the same sectors. So, flip a coin - no matter who wins this race, developers will be happy, and Hillsborough will suffer.
More than half of the nearly $589,000 drummed up by nine remaining candidates for the Hillsborough County Commission has gone to two established politicians: Commissioner Ken Hagan and former Tampa City Councilman Bob Buckhorn.Running for separate seats, Hagan has banked $159,367 to Buckhorn's $156,776, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Brian Blair, Buckhorn's opponent, has raised $104,804, but David Cutting, Hagan's challenger, has collected only $372.
Much of the money, directly or indirectly, comes from the building industry in fast-developing Hillsborough. Conservative businessmen, the mobile home industry and fireworks sellers also are bankrolling local races.
Buckhorn and Blair are running for one of two countywide seats left open for the general election Nov. 2: District 6, being vacated by term- limited Democrat Jan Platt.
Buckhorn, a Democratic political consultant, has a lengthy and diverse donor list reflecting the eight years he worked for Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman and the eight he spent as as a councilman.
Through the reporting period that ended last week, Freedman gave him $250, and former city police spokesman Joe Durkin chipped in $100. Former County Attorney Emmy Acton also gave $100, and her former chief assistant, Jim Porter, donated $500.
Lawyer Kevin Platt, son of the commissioner Buckhorn hopes to succeed, gave $50. Prominent defense attorney Barry Cohen contributed $500.
Deanne Roberts, a public affairs consultant and former Tampa Chamber of Commerce chairwoman, delivered $2,000 - half as a personal donation, and half from her company.
Kimmins Corp., one of the area's biggest construction concerns, gave $500, as did its chief executive, Fran Williams.
Buckhorn is reaching out to Republicans, too. Former Commissioner Stacey Easterling gave him $500, and her fiance, investor John Jaeb, donated $1,000.
DeBartolo A Blair Contributor
Blair, a Republican businessman making his second commission run in two years, has a donor list long on names that are less familiar in the public eye. But he, too, has collected heavily from the building industry and mobile home parks.
Among Blair's more prominent donors, developer Edward DeBartolo and restaurateur Chris Sullivan each gave $500. Lobbyist Todd Pressman contributed $250, and former Hillsborough GOP Chairwoman Margie Kincaid gave $200.
Former Commissioner Joe Chillura and businessman Ralph Hughes are key advisers for Blair. Chillura donated $250; Hughes and his companies have given at least $1,500.
Publisher Dick Mandt added $500, and prominent farmer Roy Davis gave $200.
George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, gave $500 each to Buckhorn and Blair.
Fireworks vendors and developers... maybe a “tragic” sparkler accident could lead to the destruction of a brand new subdivision or 2, but I’m not holding my breath. I can’t see any other good resulting from the election of either of these clowns.
Unless prude extraordinaire Ronda Storms is caught crawling across glass with Brian. If we could get past the “ew” factor, that might be somewhat entertaining.
Mental anguish
Imagine Toby Keith or Mariah Carey playing in a 20,000-capacity outdoor concert venue...
Despite empty rhetoric, a higher minimum wage will help us all
The Tribune today gives us an article in Florida’s amendment to raise the minimum wage. Of course, in an attempt to manufacture a downside to the proposal, they recycle the much disproved conservative “this will cost jobs and close businesses” scare tactic that is being trumpeted by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and other business groups. This time, though, greedy opponents of a more equitable minimum wage have thrown in a new twist: lower pay is good for the poor, because they will lose government benefits if paid adequately.
Wednesday, the conservative camp argued that increasing the minimum wage - and potentially lifting tens of thousands of Floridians out of government-backed health insurance programs - would be a bad thing.At least 13,000 Floridians could be bumped from Medicaid or KidCare eligibility if the minimum wage increase passes, according to both groups.
Carol Dover, president and chief executive of the Florida Restaurant Association, cited ``serious, serious social consequences.''
``By pushing families out of the government-sponsored programs and making it harder for employers to provide health insurance, Amendment 5 is only going to make the problem worse,'' she said.
Economist Pollin called that an ``incredible argument.''
Funny how these conservative opponents of fair pay suddenly find some compassion for the poor and decide that government assistance programs are a good thing, eh?
Despite the empty rhetoric coming from the other side, all studies still point to a raise in the minimum wage as extremely helpful for low wage workers. A raise for the lowest level workers will also result in a “trickle up” effect: workers making 7 or 8 dollars an hour should see higher paychecks too.
Robert Pollin, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, said the proposal would affect 300,000 Florida employees directly. A ripple effect on those earning an hourly wage in the $6.15 to $7.50 range would bring raises to an additional 550,000.Pollin appeared on behalf of Floridians For All, the group behind the minimum-wage push. He put the price at $440 million a year to Florida employers, a fraction of the $930 billion in total sales rung up in the state.
He said to expect ``very small, negligible price increases'' if the measure passes, about 14 cents on a $20 lunch, he suggested.
``Those price increases will wash out. Those businesses will not lose customers. Those businesses will not lose revenues. Those businesses will not lose profits.''
We know this because Princeton University's David Card and Alan Krueger tested the argument in a 1995 study comparing the employment effects of a minimum wage increase in New Jersey with effects in neighbouring Pennsylvania where no raise occurred. Contrary to the doom and gloom predictions of minimum wage foes, Card and Krueger found that modestly higher minimum wages in New Jersey did not produce higher unemployment. In fact, New Jersey experienced better job growth than its lower wage neighbour. They suggest that higher minimum wages resulted in a more stable and better motivated workforce that reduced job turnover expenses, like recruiting and training, and improved productivity. As well, putting more money into the hands of working people who spend that money in their communities produced economic spin-offs.The authors also found that an increase in the minimum wage does not necessarily have a negative employment impact on young people. In 1988, for instance, California's minimum wage jumped a whopping 27 percent, from $3.35 to $4.25. Yet from 1987 to 1989, California's teenage unemployment rate dropped more than the national average and fell relative to other comparable states that did not increase minimum wages.
That’s just the first linkable study I stumbled upon - there are tons of studies that have all independently determined that a raise in the minimum wage absolutely does NOT have a negative impact on jobs or the economy. The conservative scare arguments have been disproved over and over again.
Actually, the real problem with Amendment 5 is that it doesn’t go far enough. A one dollar raise, while significant for those who survive of $5.something per hour right now, still leaves workers with less than a living wage.
Still, Amendment 5 is all we’ve got this year. Vote “yes”.
More info: Floridians For All
The real thing
Check-out line reading, from an unimpeachable source.
September 22, 2004
GOP hates democracy
If you’ve been paying attention, you already know that, much like his brother, Jeb! feels that democracy would be much better without all that messy voting and stuff. See, Republicans are in charge of all branches of Florida government, but they aren’t satisfied with that. They remain outraged that mere citizens such as you and I have the power to dictate policy in the form of a citizen initiative.
They say that citizen initiatives clutter up the ballot, even though the legislature itself typically loads the ballot with more initiatives than the people do. (A constitutional amendment in Florida can make the ballot via legislative or citizen initiative.) In fact, the legislature, with Jeb!’s strong backing, has placed an initiative on this year’s ballot that seeks to make it much harder for citizen initiatives to take root.
A new coalition has declared war on a campaign to make it more difficult to amend the Florida Constitution.The group, Hands off Florida, opposes Amendment 2, which Florida lawmakers placed on the Nov. 2 ballot with the Florida Chamber of Commerce's backing.
The proposal would require citizen initiatives to be filed by February before a scheduled November election instead of August and gives the Supreme Court until April 1 to review each petition.
"Amendment 2 is a thinly veiled attack on voters by wealthy special interests" and "a power grab by legislators and the state's business lobby to maintain power in Tallahassee," says the group, chaired by Rick Sheppard, a West Palm Beach businessman.
Amending the Constitution is the only way residents can get around a Legislature that refuses to address important issues, the coalition contends.
The group includes the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, Common Cause, the American Lung Association of Florida and others who have frequently clashed with state lawmakers in trying to pass legislation.
"We think citizen participation is critical in a democracy," said Larry Spalding, ACLU spokesman.
A spokeswoman for VoteSmartFlorida.org, which was formed by the Florida chamber to rein in the amendment process, said the measure would improve the ability of voters to learn more about a ballot issue before they vote.
Amendments proposed by the Legislature would not have to meet the new deadlines.
Extra time for studying. Yeah, that’s the ticket...
Now, one thing that is rather puzzling is why Jeb! and his minions are even bothering with this attempt to muzzle democracy. After all, when he sees an amendment he doesn’t like, Jeb! typically simply ignores the wishes of the people and does whatever the fuck he wants.
More info:
Hands Off Florida is the group referenced above. Here’s a little taste of their myth vs. fact page:
Myth: Florida's initiative process is "out of control", and voters are being faced with an unreasonable number of initiative proposals.Fact:
Of the 50 initiatives that were filed for the 2004 general election, only six of them made it to the ballot. Florida's constitution has been amended only 16 times in the state's history through citizen-petitioned ballot initiatives while in that same time the state legislature has amended the constitution 70 times and passed over 10,000 laws. Fully 95% of measures proposed by the state legislature make it to the ballot, while only 14% of citizen initiatives successfully overcome the many hurdles to qualify. Florida doesn't even rank in the top five states with the most ballot initiatives over time.Myth: It is too easy for citizens to qualify ballot initiatives - as evidenced by the Florida Constitution being amended 95 times since 1968.
Fact:
Florida already has one of the most stringent initiative approval processes in the country. Amending the state constitution through ballot initiatives involves a lengthy and costly process of filing initiative language, securing valid signatures and having those signatures approved by the state Supreme Court and the Secretary of State. While it is true that the state constitution has been amended 95 times, most of those amendments came from legislature, while only 16 of those amendments came from the citizen initiative process. Amendment 2 does nothing to reduce the number of measures referred by the legislature or another governmental body in Florida - it only seeks to reduce citizen-led initiatives.
September 21, 2004
Roger Ratfuck
Was a well known Repuublican operative the source of theRather memos?
The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard "memos."The irony would be delicious, since Rather became famous confronting President Nixon, in whose service a very young Stone became associated with political "dirty tricks."
Reached at his Florida home, Stone had no comment.
In response to false Republican accusations regarding the CBS documents, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued this statement:“In today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became associated with political “dirty tricks” while working for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the CBS documents.
“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed”
Kerry / Edwards make Florida return
Hillsborough: Edwards to discuss health care, raise funds in Tampa
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards is set to appear in Tampa today to talk about health care and raise money for the Democratic party.In the afternoon, the North Carolina senator will hold a town hall-style meeting for invited guests at the National Association of Letter Carriers on W Cypress Street. He will then head to a $1,000-per person Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Wyndham Westshore hotel.
Presidential candidate John Kerry, meanwhile, will be in Jacksonville Tuesday afternoon, and then unite with Edwards in Orlando for a public rally at the TD Waterhouse Center. They plan to continue campaigning Wednesday in West Palm Beach and Miami.
Get Up with MorningWood
Get Up with MorningWood, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am (eastern) every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239- WMNF WOOD
Blogging on the radio
Today on MorningWood, it’s old standards day - no central theme, but plenty of subtle and not so subtle musical and spoken word commentary on the arrogance of empire and war and the growing acceptance of fascism and intolerance in this country.
Some illustrations of intolerance include the Rethuglican kicker at the RNC. You remember: the young man who attacked a female protester as she was being subdued by security at a Young Republicans event inside the RNC.
He’s recently been outed as a Pennsylvania college student, though he continues to deny his involvement.
Other recent examples include the hair pulling bully, a crowd member who took it upon himself to violently yank and pull a dissenter out of a hall by her hair, and these seperate incidents in which protesters were physically silenced by violent Bush backers. (Note - lots of links to Orcinus - there’s also a very fresh post up right now on this same subject.)
Of course, this kind of behavior isn’t limited to Republican types. Or is it? Last week in Virginia, a man made the news when he and his young daughter were reportedly verbally abused and physically intimidated at a John Edwards rally. Phil Parlock reported that a mean Democrat wearing a Union t-shirt ripped a Bush/Cheney sign out of his 3 year old’s little hands and made her cry by tearing up said poster in front of her.
|
Very coincidental, but there’s still that damning picture. Well, it turns out that one of Parlock’s grown sons bears an uncanny resemblance to the guy who was dressed in a union shirt. Did Parlock stage this whole event in order to give Democrats a black eye? Many people say that he did, and all of the evidence points in that direction.
In the second hour, some classic Christian intolerance. Jimmy Swaggart, the money grubbing televangelist, actually threatened to kill any man who might think to look at Jimmy with lustful intentions. Jimmy feels that God will reward him for this behavior.
There is some talk that Jimmy might be a little too preoccupied with thoughts of violent anal rape, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, we’ll hear the audio from Jimmy’s show and build a set around it. A video clip, from which the audio was taken, is available here, having been blatantly ripped off from Oliver Willis’ blog.
Finally, as is my habit, I will, in all likelihood, cut in way too frequently with my own verbal rants. Tune in and listen up.
Playlists
Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.
Warning - some of this week’s songs will be played together or talked over - tune in and you’ll figure it out.
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
September 20, 2004
Recruiters are people too blood sucking maggots preying on the poor!
Today’s Tampa Tribune has an article on those nice military recruiters who are helping out poor and minority students by sending them off to die young in a foreign war in order to save them from a miserable life f poverty here in the US.
So, why would any sane person join the Army these days?
Health care (You’ll need it after being maimed by an IED, but as a veteran, you’ll likely be denied proper care.)
Vocational training (You’ll be trained to perform a military job. Good luck finding a civilian job that requires the same skills.)
Upward mobility (Veterans actually earn less than non-veterans holding the same jobs. One third of all homeless people are veterans.)
 |
Discipline (You’ll learn to do what you’re told without thinking and without question. Actually, this might be helpful if you ever make it out and into civilian life, as long as you’re planning a career as a lemming - or as a dungeon mistress)
A glimmer of hope (Hope for an early death at the hands of a foreign enemy, or a life as a crippled homeless person.)
Play with guns (Okay - you will be allowed to play with lots of guns. You may even get to kill.)
As a society, we ensure that socioeconomic conditions remain ripe for the recruitment of poor and minority cannon fodder.
Recruiters concentrate on poor schools and the poor neighborhoods surrounding them. They will say and do almost anything to get warm bodies. Often compared to used car salesmen, their only concern is fulfilling their quotas.
Overall, the Army spends more than $460 million a year on recruiting and advertising. In addition to the glossy brochures and television spots promoting the ``Army of One,'' the service sponsors sporting events popular with the demographic it is trying to recruit - auto racing, football, basketball and rodeo.``It's a sales organization,'' Padjune said.
Empty promises of job training, help with college, and travel to exotic locales pour out of their mouths. The reality of having been trained for a military career with no civilian marketability, of having no free time to attend classes, and of having to kill the natives in those exotic locales is of no concern to the hard-sell recruiters.
Rich white folks like those who attend South Tampa’s Plant High School, as well as private school students, wont be fodder unless they go out of their way to enlist. Recruiters are simply banned from most private schools, and they don’t spend any time at public schools with wealthy students, simply because it’s more difficult to pull the wool over the eyes of a recruit whose future prospects are better than bleak.
Two private high schools also are on Hawkins' map: Jesuit and The Cambridge School. His access to them is limited, though.John Crumbley, an assistant principal at Jesuit, says his students plan for college. The campus welcomes representatives from the service academies, including West Point, but not recruiters looking for enlistees.
``They want to come in all day with a truckload of pamphlets, and that's not happening here,'' Crumbley said.
Now, the worst part of this whole situation is the fact that school systems are openly cooperating with recruiters. The schools are giving personal student information to the military so that the Army and other armed services can trick children into what is becoming literally a dead-end career.
A lot of attention was paid a few years ago when a federal funding rule kicked in, requiring public school systems to share student information with the military. No controversy around here, though, as The Hillsborough County School Board has been providing contact info for many years, and at a bargain price, too. For just $61, the military is given a database as well as the use of school property to further their nefarious agenda.
The Hillsborough County school district has been an active supporter for a long time. There was little local effect when the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act required public high schools nationwide to provide recruiters with names, addresses and phone numbers of juniors and seniors because Hillsborough has been supplying such lists for 20 years.The county charges the military $61 for an annual directory.
Parents who don't want their children contacted can have names removed from the list by filling out a form in their children's student handbooks. Critics say many people aren't aware they can ``opt out'' until after the information has been released.
``It's very overwhelming for parents when they have back- to-school night and they have 15 different waivers and forms to fill out,'' said Mary Kusler, a senior legislative specialist with the American Association of School Administrators in Washington. ``It's very easy for this one to get lost in the mix.''
And it’s not clear form this article if Hillsborough County lets parents opt out. The “No Child” laws call for an opt out option, but if Hillsborough is selling this info on its own, apart from the federal requirements, are they required to provide an opt out, and do they actually provide one?
Padjune said his recruiters won't push it if their calls are unwanted.``We attempt to contact everybody on the lists just to see what their interest is,'' he said. ``But we respect people's privacy.''
On any given day, armed forces recruiters can be found at Hillsborough's 23 public high schools, 17 of which have Junior ROTC programs.
Off campus, recruiters make regular stops at malls, movie theaters and fast-food restaurants, anywhere teenagers and young adults meet. These tactics aren't new, but they worry some parents who say children aren't getting the full picture.
Karen Putney's two sons graduated from public high schools in Tampa and were reminded of military benefits frequently by recruiters who said little about the possibility of combat, she recalls.
Neither son joined; the Putneys are Quaker and opposed to war.
``It has to be an informed choice,'' she said. ``There needs to be much more information about the grimmer details of the job.''
Gee, I don’t remember an ROTC program at Plant High when I attended. Oh, wait...
This underscores what some say is most wrong with the recruiting system. Recruiters look for candidates at public schools, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, where seniors are less likely to go to college and more uncertain about their futures, says Kevin Ramirez of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Philadelphia.``Recruiting is a numbers game,'' said Ramirez, coordinator of the organization's Military Out Of Our Schools program. ``They have information going back five, 10 years on the percentage of students from a school that enlists. They know where to look for recruits.''
It's clear that the frequency of recruiter visits can vary by school.
At Plant High School in south Tampa, for example, 97 percent of graduating seniors go on to college, says Principal Eric Bergholm. Military recruiters are welcome at Plant, he says, but they visit the campus only a few times a month.
At Blake High School in central Tampa, 60 percent of graduates are college-bound. Military recruiters are on campus as often as three times a week, says Principal Jacqueline Haynes.
So, our local government is actively partnering with the military to cull poor and minority students and send them overseas to be shot at. Don’t worry, though, because the Hillsborough County Public School System has some very strict rules when it comes to personal contact between a recruiter and students:
* Visits should be at a regularly scheduled place, time and day of the week.Recruiters must really hate this rule, which forces them to be able to maintain a tightly packed and efficient weekly schedule. But, to be fair, this rule does help students to avoid the recruiters - a student can simply skip school on recruiter days. Hey, it’s only 3 days a week.
See, this rule protects students who accidently come to school on a recruiter day and then unknowingly stumble into the recruiter’s office.* Recruiters should not interview students who have not followed the proper procedure for a meeting.
HOW do the recruiters manage to live within these rules? They are true American Heroes!* Honest, up-to-date information should be conveyed to all students. Recruiters should conduct themselves so students do not feel pressured.
This rule is really strict - forcing the overworked recruiters to pass out literature. Why does the Hillsborough County School System hate the military?* Recruiters should offer military information to all students who request it, regardless of whether the student appears to be a good candidate.
Another tough rule. This one forces the recruiter to use his computer to look up students’ names and addresses in the database provided by the county.* If a student states he or she has decided definitely against a military career, the recruiter should not request to see the student again on school time.
Helpful Links:
The Objector: Home of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
Not in Our Name: Stop the Military Recruiters
VFP Lawrence High School exhibit
September 17, 2004
Register NOW to vote in November
You only have until October 4 to register. Contact your local County Supervisor of Elections and get it done.
As of this writing, the state site that allows for online registration is down, with a note promising to be back up by Thursday the 16th. They’re blaming the hurricane.
Try this link, or just pop in to your local elections office and fill out a damn form.
September 15, 2004
KerEdVolOrCon?!?
Kerry / Edwards Volunteer Organizing Convention
Saturday, September 18, 2004
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Iron Workers Local 397
10201 US Hwy. 92 East
Tampa, FL 33610
Printable pdf flier here. (NOTE: wrong zip code. The correct zip code is 33610)
Become a “Poll Watcher” in FL
Become a “Poll Watcher” in FL and Stop Voting Rights Violations on Election DayFL has been identified as one of nine states nationwide that are at “high risk” for voting rights violations such as not allowing registered voters to cast their ballots.
Here’s what you can do to help ensure that all legitimate votes are counted.
A coalition of groups is training volunteers to be Election Day “poll watchers” who will go to polling places, monitor what takes place there, and educate voters about their rights. Volunteers are also needed to hand out flyers in key neighborhoods informing residents of their voting rights.
To volunteer or learn more, visit www.electionprotection.org.TrueMajority.org is teaming up with our friends at Working Assets, People for the American Way Foundation, and the Election Protection Coalition to put together this program that will work.
There’s a long history of antidemocratic forces interfering with voters’ right to cast ballots. Here’s the kind of stuff that Election Protection volunteers will be taking action to prevent:
* This summer, Representative John Pappageorge (R-Troy) of Michigan was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election." African Americans comprise 83 percent of Detroit's population.
* In South Dakota's June 2004 primary, Native American voters were prevented from voting after they were challenged to provide photo IDs, which they were not required to present under state or federal law.
* Earlier this year in Texas, a local district attorney claimed that students at a majority black college were not eligible to vote in the county where the college is located. It happened in Waller County—the same county where 26 years earlier, a federal court order was required to prevent discrimination against the college's students.
* In Kentucky in July 2004, Black Republican officials joined to ask their state GOP party chairman to renounce plans to place "vote challengers" in African American precincts during the coming elections.
* In 2003 in Philadelphia, voters in African American areas were systematically challenged by men carrying clipboards and driving a fleet of some 300 sedans with magnetic signs designed to look like law enforcement insignia.
* In 2002 in Louisiana, flyers were distributed in African American communities telling voters they could go to the polls on Tuesday, December 10—three days after a Senate runoff election was actually held.
* In 1998 in South Carolina, a state representative mailed 3,000 brochures to African American neighborhoods claiming that law enforcement agents would be "working" the election and warning voters that "this election is not worth going to jail."
Wingers Target Black Churches in Latest Voter Intimidation Tactic
Jeb! has been working hard to suppress the black vote here in Florida. The infamous purge list was just the tip of the iceberg. He and his brother know well that blacks, who traditionally vote overwhelmingly Democratic, could make the difference this year.
Today, the St. Pete Times reports on a rather sinister development. It seems that the IRS is investigating a traditionally black church in Tampa based on a campaign stop 2 years ago by Janet Reno, who was in a primary race for governor at the time.
Now, I have no problem with the IRS investigating valid complaints, but, especially when taken in the context of Florida’s purge list and other attempts to keep black voter turnout low, this situation seems troubling at least.
The parking lot at First Baptist Church of College Hill was filling up when a worker began telling people to leave.The political forum at the historically black church would not be taking place, he said. At the last minute, it was being moved to a public library.
Inside a cramped room, moderator Gerald White explained the switch. That afternoon, the pastor had received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service asking about political activity at the church, a stop for many Democrats running for office.
The Rev. Abraham Brown didn't want to hold another political event when the IRS was asking questions, White said.
Why had the IRS turned its attention to this fixture in Tampa's black community?
Both the IRS and Brown declined to comment. White said the letter sent by the IRS last month asked about a 2-year-old visit by then-gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno.
Experts say it's likely someone complained to the IRS about Reno's stop.
Across the nation, people are turning to the IRS to keep pastors from promoting political agendas. It is happening in a year when both presidential campaigns are increasingly using churches as a way to reach voters.
The Bush campaign has courted evangelical Christians, including asking for church mailing lists in some states. Democrat John Kerry has campaigned at black churches and invoked his faith in speeches. In July, Kerry's running mate stumped at a black church in Orlando.
As the political influence of churches grows, opponents are wielding the tax code as a weapon against them.
"It could have a chilling effect," said state Rep. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat who is African-American. "I see it as a way to try to intimidate people, but I think it's not going to work."
In August, Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe urged congregants at a black church in Miami to defeat President Bush. Two days later, Americans United for Separation of Church and State reported the church to the IRS.
The IRS prohibits churches from campaigning, unless they want to pay taxes as other political groups do.
The group has filed about 50 complaints against churches - from Jerry Falwell Ministries for endorsing Bush in July to a black church in Los Angeles, where former President Bill Clinton urged people to oppose the recall of then-Gov. Gray Davis.
"It is good for the country that religious organizations are not asked to be cogs in the wheel of any political party," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United.
Americans United (AU) routinely files complaints against churches for overstepping the bounds. AU does not target candidates or churches based on their party affiliation of political leanings. AU is not mentioned here as the source of this complaint about an incident 2 years ago.
In fact, AU is probably not interested in that incident, since it is so old, and since there are no prohibitions against having candidates simply visit churches. (PDF file) It is a routine occurrence, as the article points out later.
So, why is this predominantly African American church being targeted now? It seems that the religious right, as part of their never ending quest to move this country so far toward their end of the spectrum that centrists are portrayed as raging liberals, has set up an organization to “counter” AU.
It is exactly because AU is non-partisan that it needs to be countered. See, AU thinks that “Houses Of Worship Should Not Be Part Of A Political Machine”. They want politics out. Period. Liberal, conservative, all of it. They know the law, and they strive to ensure that it is fairly enforced.
So some religious winger types started an organization called RatOutAChurch.Org, whose
immediate purpose is to fight back against vicious left-wing attempts to silence conservative, Bible believing pastors.
That quote is found right at the top of their homepage, but I found the following passage, from one of their press releases, much more illuminating.
William J. Murray, the president of the Religious Freedom Action Coalition, a social conservative group, announced the formation of a group to monitor traditionally liberal churches for political activity. The new group, Big Brother Church Watch, functions primarily through its Internet site at www.RatOutaChurch.org!The newly formed organization has already placed monitors in politically active Metropolitan Community, Unitarian/Universalist, and AME churches. AME churches are predominately African-American and their pastors frequently endorse liberal Democrat candidates from the pulpit. Volunteer workers will also be monitoring Internet sites of Democratic candidates and following them to churches where they have announced they will speak. If pastors allow the Democrat candidates to speak and do not invite their opponents for equal time, the church will be reported to the Internal Revenue Service as a "violator."
According to Out In The Mountians The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches sees RatOutaChurch.org as a direct response to an AU complaint against Jerry Falwell:
The organization's website proclaims its mission as "Ending Radical Left-Wing Politics In The Pulpit." Quoting from the website: "We are actively recruiting volunteers to attend services of churches known to have liberal leanings and report to us anything said from the pulpit that may be construed as 'endorsement' of a candidate. We intend to file complaints with the IRS against these churches that overtly endorse candidates or who use 'code words' to tell congregations to vote for a specific party."The MCC notice suggested that the RatOutaChurch.com campaign, a project of Big Brother Church Watch, was in retaliation for a complaint filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State against Jerry Falwell for his endorsement of George Bush's election campaign on his ministry's website. The complaint seeks the revocation of tax-exempt status for Falwell's ministries because of the alleged violation of IRS laws.
The MCC notice says that "known liberal churches" include its own gay-friendly congregations, along with Unitarian Universalist, and predominantly African-American AME congregations.
So, did Murray’s organization target this black church in Tampa? Maybe, but no one is talking yet. In the meantime, a few more black voters might just lose interest or decide that voting is just too much trouble. Another victory for Jeb!
The rest of the Saint Pete Times article is well worth reading, but this part stands out:
Political activists who attended the forum wondered why the IRS had questioned the College Hill church, but not Christian evangelical churches such as Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa.Idlewild holds political forums and prints a candidate fact sheet that only mentions candidates with evangelical credentials who belong to Idlewild. The fact sheet says it's not meant to be an endorsement.
"What happened at Idlewild was an abuse of the system and what happened at Abe Brown's church was the system abusing people who were trying to participate in it," said Adam Elend, a political activist who attended a recent forum at Idlewild.
Pastor Reno Zunz of Idlewild could not be reached for comment.
Here’s an enlightening bit of info about one of Idlewild’s congregants:
Barbara Wilcox works hard for George Bush, Bill McCollum and God.And if Wilcox has her way, Christian conservatives like her, voting in the largest numbers since 1994, will elect all three.
"We need to elect someone who will keep God in front of the people," said Wilcox, a retired real estate broker who is as active in politics as she in Tampa's 8,000-plus member Idlewild Baptist Church.
Gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, banning of prayer in schools and the belief that righteous judges are being kept off the courts have enraged many conservative Protestants and Catholics who see the 2004 election as their best chance for political redemption.
Wilcox, who as a member of the Hillsborough County judicial nominating committee helps pick that county's circuit judges, is worried that nation could lose touch with God if church-going people don't make their voices heard this year.
Uh, the author of that last report seems to have left out many qualifiers in his paraphrasing of Barb’s views. Words like white and conservative and fundamentalist and Christian placed right before “church-going people” would have been more than appropriate.
September 14, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
Get Up with MorningWood, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am (eastern) every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239- WMNF WOOD
Blogging on the radio
Flags and Birthdays.
WMNF is 25 years old today. I’m gonna sprinkle in some birthday songs, and I’ll also be playing 3 or 4 “Track 25" songs - songs that just happen to be the 25th track on a CD. Call in during any of the “Track 25" songs and I’ll send you a present from MorningWood and WMNF. (Hint: check the online playlists if you’d like a cheat sheet.)
As for flags, well... the Rethuglicans in Washington are planning to introduce yet another flag desecration bill. Their plan is to force Democratic candidates to vote “against” the flag. In real life, of course, this bill would only serve to further restrict the very rights and freedoms that the jingoists would have us believe this country still stands for. So I’m gonna play a shitload of flag related songs.
During my planning, I came across populist Johnny Cash’s “Ragged Old Flag” as well as the popular Southern Fascist Charlie Daniels’ “Aint No Rag It’s a Flag.” We will have a little compare and contrast of CD and JC during the second hour this morning.
Playlists
Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
September 12, 2004
RNC Pics
Finally, as promised,some pics from the RNC.
So, how was it? The cops were fascist bastards, except for the ones who weren’t. The demos and marches where we were penned in like animals kinda sucked. The ones where there was room to breathe and move around, the ones without the cattle pens, were good.
Overall, the tactics of the police and the Bloomberg administration were chilling. They were designed to minimize the expression of free speech, and they worked. Despite the heavy handed tactics, half a million or more people came out throughout the week to show their discontent with the current administration’s policies and join with like minded others to voice their feelings.
It was great.
Thanks to Chris for taking and providing the pics and the captions. My plan for a digital camera fizzled out just like my plan to have a usable notebook to blog with. Oh well.
September 10, 2004
Huge toxic spill threatens Tampa Bay ecosystem
High nutrient content, low pH levels, heavy metals, and radioactive sludge make for a lethal Bay cocktail; discharges to continue.
 |
Twice warned by state regulators that a thin dike wall and higher than usual water levels could lead to disaster, Cargill failed to fix problems with it’s waste reservoir in a timely manner, resulting in the discharge of 70 million gallons of radioactive sludge mixed with highly acidic water into environmentally sensitive Tampa Bay.
Then, once it became apparent that a spill was imminent, or even in progress, Cargill ignored local lines of communication which may have allowed for quick containment help and called the industry friendly state DEP instead. Local authorities found out about the spill from a DEP press conference in Talahassee - these guys failed to notify even their closest neighbors that they were in the process of spilling and killing,
Once word of the spill, er, leaked out, Cargill downplayed its significance, maintaining that this was a manageable event, that Cargill was treating the overflow to prevent damage, and that there was nothing to worry about.
Since this weekend’s spill, we’ve had rain every day, and Ivan is quite possibly coming to dump even more water in our area. Now, Cargill says that it will have to “relocate” another 90 million gallons of waste water to prevent another catastrophic spill. Cargill is in the process of drawing down the reservoir, transferring some water to another stack, and releasing ever more water into the containment berm around the faulty reservoir.
Once in the berm, it will be treated with lime to make it somewhat less toxic. Well, that’s the official spin, but this treatment will simply raise the pH level to make the discharge a little less acidic. It will do nothing to clean nasty contaminants like arsenic and mercury and radiation. Then, after “treatment”, the toxic stew in the berm will be released into Archie creek and flow directly into Tampa Bay.
As well as carcinogenic heavy metals, the mixture of water and radioactive waste and lime contains tons of phosphorus and nitrogen - the raw materials of fertilizer - which, when released into a body of water, feeds algae growth, which lowers oxygen levels, which kills fish and leads to dead zones.
 |
The Tampa Tribune has the industry spin, including low spill totals, a quote from a loyal BlogWood reader who was at yesterday’s Cargill protest, and whacked out County Commissar Ronda Storms, famous for having claimed to have “crawled across glass on my elbows,” contorting like a local carnival freak to find a way to compliment Cargill on its environmental stewardship.
A fertilizer company pondered some distasteful options Thursday in an effort to avoid another dike failure like the one Monday that released 60 million gallons of polluted wastewater into a nearby creek.Cargill Crop Nutrition must decide whether it should release an additional 32 million gallons of treated process water from an impoundment sitting atop a 180-foot-high mountain of phosphogypsum.
If Cargill delays the discharge, oncoming Hurricane Ivan could hit the stack with wind-driven rains just as Frances did this week, punching another hole in the dike.
Either option threatens significant environmental harm to Archie Creek and Hillsborough Bay.
Even if Cargill treats the wastewater to lower its acidity, 32 million gallons of water laden with phosphorus and nitrogen could lower oxygen in the bay to dangerous levels. The result could be fish kills and other damage.
Officials at the site north of Gibsonton are under pressure to lower the dangerously high levels of water held on the gypsum stack. The company has faced increased criticism since The Tampa Tribune revealed Wednesday that state environmental officials had wanted the company to start discharging wastewater in August.
Thursday, Cargill managers were explaining their dilemma to the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission. Ronda Storms, whose role as a county commissioner makes her a member of the EPC, said she appreciated Cargill's usual policy of not discharging treated water into public waterways.
``I want to commend Cargill for being a good corporate citizen up to that point'' on Monday, Storms said. ``It was really a big gamble, and you lost the gamble.''
At the same time, protesters outside the plant called for more state scrutiny. Several environmental groups say they will ask for a moratorium on permits for gypsum stacks.
The phosphate industry has a long history of environmental mishaps, mostly caused by similar spills of acidic water into streams and rivers.
``I think it's despicable that the government allowed Cargill to pollute the waters and not respect the environment,'' said Lori Karpay, of Tampa.
Good job, Lori. She and many others showed up for a spur of the moment protest against Cargill and the phosphate mining industry in general.
And Ronda: Cargill’s insistence on “recycling” their waste water - essentially allowing it to evaporate instead of finding a safe disposal method - saved it tons of money. Cargill was not being a good steward of the environment. It was being a good steward of its shareholders’ profits. Cargill did not need to pay for expensive permits or water treatment. Now it gets to dump the water anyway. Oops. Sorry. It might not happen again...
|
|
Reading the Tribune, one gets a picture of a bad situation that Cargill is trying its best to control. The St. Pete Times has a whole ‘nother story:
With Hurricane Ivan swirling near Florida, Cargill Crop Nutrition is scrambling to drain an industrial recycling system that includes a faulty gypsum stack holding a billion gallons of heavily polluted water above Hillsborough Bay.A break in the stack Sunday caused by waves whipped up by Frances forced the Riverview fertilizer manufacturer to dump nearly 70-million gallons of treated but toxic water into a creek that leads to Hillsborough Bay.
The company repaired the break and plans to line the weakened area with plastic to avoid a repeat performance if Ivan hits, said Sam Elrabi, a spokesman for the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission, which monitors the water management practices at Cargill.
Now the focus has shifted to a nearby 238-acre holding pond, made of an 18-foot earthen wall, that is "full to the rim" and vulnerable to a similar break, Elrabi said.
"We need to move water out of that," he said. "We're all working around the clock to provide the best possible protection to the public and to the environment."
Nearly 90-million gallons of polluted water needs to be relocated from the pond, Elrabi said.
Plant operations stopped Thursday afternoon to hasten the water shuffling, said David Jellerson, Cargill's environmental manager.
Cargill plans to pump a third of the excess water to the top of an old gypsum pile that hasn't been used since 1990. Some also is being trucked to a facility in Polk County that has extra storage space.
Another 30-million gallons will go into a stormwater ditch that surrounds Cargill's active gypsum stack, Elrabi said. There, it will be treated with a neutralizing agent to lower its acidity and, if Ivan hits, discharged into Archie Creek, which flows into Hillsborough Bay.
......Environmental agencies say that the wastewater already released by Cargill due to Frances may have set back their goals for restoring sea grass and reviving the bay's ecology by years. Cargill's decision to dump the water added large amounts of nitrogen to the bay, which inhibits sea grass growth. Environmental and Cargill officials discussed the spill Thursday during a meeting of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission.
Also Thursday, protesters gathered near the Riverview plant and circulated a petition asking for stricter regulation of the phosphate industry.
......Environmental regulators have been keeping a close eye all week on the impact of the acidic water on fish. They have reported seeing dozens of dead stingrays, crabs, snook and mullet.
Also of concern is the large amount of nitrogen in the water and its negative effect on sea grass beds, an important food source and breeding ground for wildlife.
To promote sea grass growth, a group of local governments, environmental agencies and industry representatives approved a plan in 1998 to reduce nitrogen dumped into Hillsborough Bay by 6 tons a year. But the release in just two days from Cargill added 93 tons of nitrogen to the bay, said Dick Eckenrod, executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.
So, there’s another pond that is about to fail. And the original spill was close to 70 million gallons, not 60 something. Another 30 million, at least, is in the pipeline, so to speak, and it’s likely that even more will have to be released when the next hurricane blows through. So we’re easily into hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic, acidic water containing radioactive and heavy metal wastes flowing into an estuary that was in the process of making a healthy comeback.
Read the rest of the Times story for some quick background on local phosphate issues.
BlogWood background here, including info on waste ponds and gypsum stacks.
 |
(Note - “Blinky” idea blatantly ripped off from a Daily Kos comment on an earlier story about this spill.)
September 09, 2004
Florida Politics
Florida Politics is back online after another extended power outage. Check it out before Ivan knocks us all off again...
Random acts of kindless
After the storm, selfless little acts of Christian love popped up like a spreading mold all over the state...
A pastor, his wife and three others were under arrest Wednesday on charges they sold donations for hurricane victims from their church.Polk County sheriff's deputies raided Mercy House Ministries, where supplies intended for Hurricane Charley and Frances victims were displayed as if in a grocery store, investigators said.
Undercover detectives bought some of the items, originally obtained by church members from a hurricane aid distribution center, before making the arrests.
Pastor Billy Dan Benton, 48, and his wife Pamela, 44, of Lakeland face charges of grand theft and fraud.
They were jailed Tuesday night on $25,000 bail each.
Kristina Pelfrey, 36, and her husband, Thomas Dale Pelfrey, 40, of Winter Haven and Michael James Johnson, 37, of Auburndale, also were arrested on grand theft and fraud charges and were in jail with bail set at $25,000.
The church has been providing food in the rural, largely impoverished community for at least a year.
Mercy House on at least five occasions received large donations of food, baby supplies and other items worth at least $300 from a hurricane distribution center in Bartow, a sheriff's report said.
Undercover deputies noted they bought a can of baby formula marked "sample, not for sale" priced at $1.50.
The church also purchased milk and eggs from a local grocery store and marked up the prices, the Sheriff's Office said.
"It's not a church in any shape or fashion; it looks like a grocery store when you go in there," said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers.
Rodgers said the food on the church's shelves would be photographed and inventoried and returned to the hurricane distribution center where it would be given to needy storm victims.
So, what happens during the rest of the year when these guys are busy scamming impoverished locals who lack the transportation options to travel to a store where they can actually pay retail price without an additional 100 percent markup? I’m pretty sure that this operation didn’t just open after the hurricanes - people like this make their living by taking advantage of a class of people whose choices are nearly nonexistent.
Financially powerless, homeless or right on the edge, lacking education, perhaps mentally ill, but unmedicated, the poor make a very easy target for “service providers” like Rent-To-Own ripoff centers and usurious Payday Loan joints. But at least these businesses are loosely regulated, and they have contracts to sign, and are actually pretty up front about the reaming they are about to give someone. This is not to say that the victim has any choice, or that the victim necessarily understands the complexities and costs involved in these agreements, but the huge interest rates or the exorbitant costs for cheesy furniture are clearly laid out.
Churches and mobile preachers are a whole different story. They open up shop in depressed areas where unemployment rages to the point that many residents lack the means to travel more than a few blocks for groceries and other daily needs. Many residents have no ability to pay for groceries, even if they could get to a store.
The scam artists suck the hopeless in with promises of salvation and hot food, maybe even a bed. Then they wring every last cent they can out of them - a few dollars a day - by running a “company store” type scam with “credit” extended to buy shoddy, overpriced merchandise, some of which was donated by well meaning people who think they are helping someone.
Trouble repaying? No problem - you can work off your debt by fixing up the “Church” property. You’ll get credit for $3 or $4 an hour if your benefactor is feeling generous. Or maybe the “Preacher Man” will farm you out, day labor style, taking $10 per hour or so for your work and trading you a bed and some bad food in return.
After a natural disaster, it’s pretty easy to shift gears slightly by soliciting donations, picking up free emergency relief supplies, or whatever. People all over the country are lining up to help victims of Charley and Frances, and the scum who were already in place and operating their squeeze-the-poor scams are in ideal positions to take advantage of both the generous and the needy.
It’s too bad that it took 2 hurricanes and the accompanying spotlight on post-storm ripoffs to get law enforcement types interested enough to pay attention to this problem, but at least this one operation has been shut down. Unfortunately, there are perhaps thousands of other very similar scams running throughout the state right now.
We as a society must decide to allocate an adequate amount of our very ample resources to help those who are most in need. Otherwise, we are providing the ideal environment in which to perpetuate a cycle of false hope, scams, and rip-offs.
September 08, 2004
60 million gallons of radioactive toxic sludge released into Tampa Bay
Update - Protest Thursday to draw awareness to Cargill's negligence - see comments for details.
So far, at least officially, 60 million gallons of radioactive, highly acidic waste water has spilled into Tampa Bay.
A month ago, Cargill Crop Nutrition received an award for its environmental stewardship.On Tuesday, company representatives stood watch as government officials surveyed the environmental damage created when the fertilizer manufacturer dumped 60-million gallons of acidic water into a creek leading to Hillsborough Bay.
Water in the bay tested normal on Tuesday, but officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they saw a handful of dead stingrays, mullet and snook floating along a 75-foot stretch of shore.
Local crabbers reported pulling up traps with dead animals, and plants suffered damage.
"We did see some vegetation burns out there today, so it's evident that what went through there was unkind to the vegetation," said Rick Garrity, director of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission.
I’ve got to note that the “award” was presented to the company for doing exactly what it is required by law to do. This is like giving drivers awards for obeying basic traffic laws.
...the Alafia River Basin Board honored Cargill for its restoration of 4 miles of company-owned coastline, a requirement of Cargill's operating permits.
Back to the spill: Cargill fertilizer was warned twice by the state in the last month to get their act together. First, the DEP complained that the berm which was eventually breached was too thin. Then, Cargill was warned that the water level in this pond was way too high. They were told to pump excess water into an old stack across the street.
The company says it was taking steps to remedy these problems, but they obviously did not do enough. And even after being warned that the pond was dangerously full, they failed to ensure that they had an adequate supply of caustic soda to neutralize the acid in the event of a spill.
Everyone is talking about the acid levels, which will probably result in killing everything in the creek and a swath of bay that receives runoff. Everything will probably die. Plants, fish, crabs, the whole ecosystem. Except for algae. Algae will bloom and worsen the situation.
 |
The big open secret about this spill is the radiation and toxic materials. The waste pond from which the water escaped sits atop a highly radioactive stack of gypsum.
It is sort of a misnomer, however, to call these stacks "gypsum" stacks. Indeed, if the stacks were simply gypsum, they probably wouldn't exist, as gypsum can be readily sold for various purposes (e.g. as a building material). What can't be readily sold, however, is radioactive gypsum, which is about the only type of gypsum the phosphate industry has to offer.The source of the gypsum's radioactivity is the presence of uranium, and uranium's various decay products (i.e. radium), in raw, phosphate ore. As noted by the Sarasota Herald Tribune
"there is a natural and unavoidable connection between phosphate mining and radioactive material. It is because phosphate and uranium were laid down at the same time and in the same place by the same geological processes millions of years ago. They go together. Mine phosphate, you get uranium."While uranium, and its decay-products, naturally occur in phosphate ore, their concentrations in the gypsum waste, after the extraction of soluble phosphate, are up to 60 times greater.
The gypsum has therefore been classified as a "Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material", or NORM waste, although some, including the EPA, have questioned whether this classification understates the problem. According to the Tampa Tribune, the gypsum "is among the most concentrated radioactive waste that comes from natural materials."
It is so concentrated, in fact, that "it can't be dumped at the one landfill in the country licensed to take only NORM waste."
Thus, according to US News & World Report, the EPA is currently "weighing whether to classify the gypsum stacks as hazardous waste under federal statutes, which would force the industry to provide strict safeguards" (to nearly 1 billion tons of waste).
One of EPA's main concerns with gypsum stacks centers around the fact that radium-226 breaks down into radon gas. When radon gas is formed, it can become airborne, leading to potentially elevated exposures downwind of the stacks. Such airborne exposures are of particular concern to areas like Progress Village, Florida, where "a new gypsum stack is rising a few hundred yards from a grade school."
According to US News & World Report, there is evidence to suggest that cancer rates downwind of the stacks may be elevated. A 1995 article in the magazine stated:
"Some epidemiological studies suggest that lung cancer rates among nonsmoking men in the phosphate region are up to twice as high as the state average. Acute leukemia rates among adults are also double the average. An industry-sponsored study of male phosphate workers, however, found lung cancer rates no higher than the state average. There is no proof that mine wastes cause cancer, but the evidence is worrisome."
No need to worry about the health of Progress Village: most of its citizens are poor and black, so we can safely ignore the looming 25 story pile of (figuratively) glowing rocks that is the dominant feature of the landscape.
But I digress. As well as the various decay-products of uranium, the waste water contains fluoride, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury, a toxic stew to rival the worst in industrial waste. This is all settling on the bottom of Tampa Bay right now.
So, even if Cargill had started with enough caustic soda to “treat” all of the spilled water to bring up the pH levels, all of the toxins still would have escaped into the bay.
Gypsum stacks and ponds are becoming very problematic. Often, having extracted every penny of viable profit from a site, having irrevocably scarred huge tracts of land by scraping away 10 to 20 feet of topsoil, having built huge mountains of radioactive waste, companies walk away. They go bankrupt or simply stop maintaining their sites and leave the state with billions of dollars in cleanup costs.
 |
One spill, in 1997, from a now-defunct gypsum stack in Florida, "killed more than a million fish.""Strike the Alafia River off your list of fishing spots," wrote one journalist after the spill. "It's gone, dead as a sewer pipe, killed by the carelessness of yet another phosphate company."
Today, the same gypsum stack which caused this particular spill, is considered by Florida's Department of Environmental Protection to be "the most serious pollution threat in the state." That's because tropical rains over the past couple of years have brought the wastewater to the edge of the stack's walls.
As noted by the Tampa Tribune, "The gypsum mound is near capacity, and a wet spring or a tropical storm could cause a catastrophic spill."
To prevent such a spill, which was all but inevitable, the EPA recently agreed to let Florida pursue "Option Z": To load 500-600 million gallons of the wastewater onto barges and dump it directly into the Gulf of Mexico.
The dumping of the wastewater into the Gulf represents the latest in a series of high-profile embarrasments for Florida's phosphate industry; one of the most dramatic of which happened on June 15, 1994.
On that day, a massive, 15-story sinkhole appeared in the middle of an 80 million ton gypsum stack. The hole was so big that, according to US News & World Report, it
"could be as big as 2 million cubic feet, enough to swallow 400 railroad boxcars. Local wags call it Disney World's newest attraction -- 'Journey to the Center of the Earth.'"
But, as US News noted,
"there's nothing amusing about it. The cave-in dumped 4 million to 6 million cubic feet of toxic and radioactive gypsum and waste water into the Floridan aquifer, which provides 90 percent of the state's drinking water."
And so it goes.
As summarized by the Tampa Tribune:
"It's not like you can padlock the doors and walk away. The complexities of keeping a phosphate processing plant operating are becoming clear to government regulators now overseeing two of them. Ponds full of 1.5 billion gallons of acid and three mountains of radioactive waste mean you just can't shut off the machinery and turn out the lights. The state could be stuck with the plants for years. And taxpayers would be stuck with the tab."
September 07, 2004
Get Up with MorningWood
Get Up with MorningWood, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 am (eastern) every Tuesday!
Studio line: 813-239- WMNF WOOD
Blogging on the radio
Today, it’s the MorningWood All of the Above Special, paying tribute to the protests in New York, Labor Day, and Hurricane Frances. (Okay - technically, there’s only one song even remotely related to the hurricane, and I plan to play it behind a spoken word piece by Christian Parenti, but I say it’s an All of the Above Special, and I’m in charge around here.)
Anyway, I’m gonna let the music speak for me. And the spoken word pieces. They’ll speak for me too. But I’m not gonna speak much myself. Unless I go off on a rambling reminiscence of the good ole days on the streets of New York City, back in the summer of ought-4...
Playlists
Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.
Warning - many of this week’s songs will be played together or talked over - tune in and you’ll figure it out.
WMNF Community Radio
WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.
September 06, 2004
Back on the grid
Well, my power ended up off, but only for 17 hours or so. It coulda been a lot worse.
So, I’m getting my computers plugged back in, fixing my zapped phone wiring, scrambling to repair several client computers that were put up during the storm, and planning tomorrow’s MorningWood Labor Day? Hurricane? RNC? All of the above? Special.
I’ll try to post updates on the acid spill as well as thoughts on NYC, but, as is usual lately, excuses are more likely than actual posts, at least ‘til tomorrow.
September 05, 2004
Gods update update
 |
We now have solid proof that The gods are not pleased(back)
Cargill is an environmental rapist
Today’s Tampa Bay acid spill is the very predictable result of mining companies cutting corners to increase profits at the expense of the environment, with a wink and a nod from the state.
As much as 120 million gallons of acidic wastewater is flowing into Hillsborough Bay from a breach in the retention reservoir at Cargill Fertilizer, authorities said late this afternoon.The storm-related rupture occurred this morning as the company was trying to drain some of the reservoir, said Colleen Castille, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The company notified the industry friendly DEP before they notified local authorities...
She announced it at a 4 p.m. briefing in Tallahassee; Hillsborough County officials said they weren't aware until about 4:30 p.m. There was no immediate explanation for the lack of communication, and Cargill officials could not be reached for comment.Hillsborough Administrator Pat Bean said a county fire truck was dispatched to confirm the breach, which Castille described as a six-foot hole in the southern end of the dike. The wastewater was flowing into Archie Creek, and from there into the bay.
``Clearly we are very concerned about this,'' Bean said. ``It will be considered a very serious issue.''
Fish kills and other environmental damage are potential results of such spills, but there was no word on specific effects likely in this case.
Castille said the company was treating the discharge with lime to try to offset the acidity, and a trench around the reservoir was large enough to contain perhaps 20 percent of the leakage.
Treating a spill of this magnitude with lime is like trying to soak up all the rain that has fallen on Florida in the past day and a half with a kitchen sponge. If the mine owners were at all concerned about the environmental impact, they would have notified local authorities as soon as they thought there might be a problem - they could have received help with containment and repair, but now it looks like it’s too late.
The fear of a major acidic spill into Tampa Bay is not a new one. In 1977, millions of gallons of phosphate waste water spilled into the Alafia river, which flows into Tampa Bay. Everything in the river that was downstream of the spill died. Everything. Or, as this dry sounding report puts it, biota in the Alafia River eliminated.
Last summer, controversy raged over a state plan to dump waste water from an abandoned mine into the Gulf so as to spare the Bay from a potentially devastating spill.
More recently, a plume of “muddy” water was released into the Alafia from an IMC fertilizer plant.
Tampa is in the heart of phosphate country. Take a drive east from the shores of Tampa Bay, and you’ll run into mile upon mile of phosphate strip mine operations. The mining companies essentially scrape off 10 feet or so off topsoil to get to the desired phosphate underneath, which is then processed using an acid wash.
What’s left is a giant hole in the ground and a reservoir of highly acidic waste water. Both of these byproducts can be hazardous.
A judge recently found that the state is somewhat lacking in its oversight of the mining industry. Ruling on a permit issued for a huge strip mining operation in northeastern Manatee County, Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston said that
IMC Phosphates provided inadequate, and sometimes inaccurate, confusing and misleading information in its application to mine the Manatee site, called the Altman Tract.At the same time, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection failed to closely question IMC about many aspects of the mine and agreed to permit it without basic information on water and wildlife resources, the document showed.
"Mining obviously will have a devastating impact on the natural environment of the Altman Tract" and could affect downstream resources as well, Johnston wrote.
The decision marks the first win after a series of legal setbacks in a multimillion-dollar campaign by Southwest Florida local governments, a regional public water utility, environmental groups and individuals to halt the spread of phosphate mining.
"It feels like a watershed moment," said Charlotte County Commissioner Adam Cummings. "I hope that it is one."
The judge's ruling, called a recommended order, is not final. But it carries significant legal weight and heartens leaders in the mining opposition as they prepare for the most significant phase of the battle over the future of the phosphate industry. That phase begins next month with a hearing on whether IMC should be allowed to mine on 20,500 acres in Hardee County.
Mining companies have traditionally been allowed to rape and pillage Florida at will. They are incredibly loosely regulated, and they do their best to barely comply with the few state regulations that do exist to protect the environment. It is really no surprise that a mjor spill is occurring right now. It is surprising that these spills don’t happen more often.
If this spill proves to be as devastating as the 1977 Alafia incident, the mining company may actually be found liable for damages. If that happens, expect the company to promptly declare bankruptcy, protecting the shareholders’ profits and leaving the state on the hook for possibly billions of dollars in clean up expenses. Oh, and someone will have to maintain the acidic reservoir to prevent another spill. The state will have no choice but to pick up those costs as well.
Breach sends acidic phosphate waste into Tampa Bay
As much as 120 million gallons of acidic wastewater is flowing into Hillsborough Bay from a breach in the retention reservoir at Cargill Fertilizer, authorities said late this afternoon.The storm-related rupture occurred this morning as the company was trying to drain some of the reservoir, said Colleen Castille, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
She announced it at a 4 p.m. briefing in Tallahassee; Hillsborough County officials said they weren't aware until about 4:30 p.m. There was no immediate explanation for the lack of communication, and Cargill officials could not be reached for comment.
Hillsborough Administrator Pat Bean said a county fire truck was dispatched to confirm the breach, which Castille described as a six-foot hole in the southern end of the dike. The wastewater was flowing into Archie Creek, and from there into the bay.
``Clearly we are very concerned about this,'' Bean said. ``It will be considered a very serious issue.''
Fish kills and other environmental damage are potential results of such spills, but there was no word on specific effects likely in this case.
Castille said the company was treating the discharge with lime to try to offset the acidity, and a trench around the reservoir was large enough to contain perhaps 20 percent of the leakage.
Bean said the Coast Guard would take the lead in cleanup, but the storm was preventing an immediate response.
Gods update
Hurricane Frances also has a heraldic quality. Camille Paglia observed on Salon in February, 2003 that the explosion of the Columbia shuttle on the eve of the war on Iraq was a "stunning omen," one that would make a Roman general think twice. A catastrophe strewing death, fire, and human remains across Bush's home state of Texas was inauspicious to our undertaking; and so it has proven to be. Frances is the second hurricane to afflict Florida, home of brother Jeb, in rapid succession.The gods are not pleased
Frances update
The bad storms that were making up the western wall of the eye are breaking up over Hillsborough County. Still very strong winds, and rain right now in downtown Tampa, but we are getting very lucky once again. Power’s still on. Internet’s still up. Trees are bending but not breaking. Still a long long way to go, but the storm is weakened considerably even if it remains big and slow.
Frances coming closer
The worst part of the storm (right now) is hitting the western Polk and the eastern edges of Hillsborough County, maybe 30 - 40 miles east of downtown Tampa.
55,000 lack power in Hillsborough right now, and TECO is saying that they may have a wait 24 hours or so before crews can safely fix things. TECO is no longer sending out repair crews as of now.
I still have power, but there’s no telling for how long. Light rain and heavy winds right this second, but constantly changing.
I’m high and dry above downtown Tampa, so my biggest concern remains airborne water intrusion - broken windows, and horizontally driven rain. I’m not even gonna think about one of the big trees around my house o’ sticks falling, but I’ll be listening for the big “CRACK” that I’ve heard many times before.
More later, maybe.
Weather getting nasty, but hot soup still available
Yummy: Pho Quyen Restaurant is open! I just got back, having decided to treat myself to what may be my last hot meal for awhile. They’re gonna try to stay open through the storm, so check them out if you’re brave enough to be wandering around.
Pho Quyen is actually kinda busy right now, and there are a few cars on the streets fleeing the scene or running last minute errands. Most every business is closed, however, so there’s really not much to do at this point.
Lots of limbs down, some weak signs too. Lots and lots of small stuff: tiny branches, lots of leaves, it looks like we’ve already been through a strong storm, but the worst is yet to come.
Electricity has gone off briefly twice so far. I’m hoping to finish this post. See the last few posts for local news and radar links.
Wet and windy
The winds are increasing, with gusts becoming strong enough to rate as scary. No plywood on my windows this time, as I got back from NY just ahead of the storm. I’m expecting some windows to blow out, standing by to plug the holes from the inside. Moving all computers to interior rooms.
The rain is still coming in fits and starts, but seems to be getting more steady. Very little traffic passing by on the major downtown artery on which I sit.
Power is already out in about 50,000 homes here in Hillsborough County. I’m expecting to lose power at any time.
More updates as I’m able.
Waiting for the hurricane
Given the third rate infrastructure that my local power company maintains, I figure I’ll lose power at some point tomorrow.
So I’m scrambling to finish up a coupla computers I’m building for clients so I can pack them up and keep them safe and dry. (Day job)
The winds are strong and steady right now. They should increase throughout the night and tropical storm strength winds are forecast for Sunday evening. I really hope Frances speeds up a bit, though that is not in the forecast. The size and the slow movement combine to make for very bad news for most of the state.
Palm Beach and the Atlantic coast are getting hammered right now, having already dealt with 12 hours or so of very strong winds and rain.
More squalls are on the way here. I’m hoping the lights stay on for awhile. More posts as news develops and time and weather permit.
Note - As far as I can determine, TECO abandoned its plans to convert to natural gas power plants and is still burring highly polluting coal. The linked article above does not explicitly say so, but it is my recollection that TECO was able to weasel out of it’s deal with the EPA to convert to gas once Bush relaxed the federal rules. Maybe I’ll do some actual research on the subject and report back, but I still owe everyone some reports and pics from New York, so don’t hold your breath on this one.
September 04, 2004
Frances
Spinning like a top off of Palm Beach - spreading squalls throughout the Tampa area and on into the Gulf.
My electricity has already been out twice, not counting the flickering and dimming incidents. We’ve had some strong winds and locally violent storms, but nothing major yet.
1 million lose power to Frances
More than a million residents endured Hurricane Frances without electricity as high winds and other dangerous conditions forced utility crews to stop responding to customer calls for help.With the stalled hurricane battering the coast, thousands of bunkered residents also lost their primary sources of information: cable television and the Internet.
The number of Floridians without power and cable was expected to rise as the hurricane crept ashore. Florida Power & Light warned customers to be prepared to spend days without light, air conditioning and refrigeration.
"People just need to plan for extended outages," FPL spokesman Bill Swank said.
At 5 p.m. Saturday, FPL reported that 1,070,500 customers had lost power in nine counties on the state's east coast even before Hurricane Frances came ashore. Tropical-storm-force winds and hurricane-forcegusts were enough.
According to FPL, 74 percent of Palm Beach County customers are without power, and that figure steadily increases farther up the coast. In Martin County, 88 percent of customers don't have electricity, and in St. Lucie County, 81 percent are without power.
Indian River has the highest percentage of outages, with 95 percent of FPL customers without power.
"Our restoration folks are just chomping at the bit to get out there and start restoring power, but we're in a situation now where it's not safe to go out now," FPL spokeswoman Kathy Scott said.
FPL crews worked through the night Friday and restored power to more than 300,000 customers. But workers were ordered to stop responding to calls when winds reached 35 mph.
September 03, 2004
Safe and sound
I’m back, having been allowed to fly and subsequently having not been arrested during my travails around Manhattan. Minus a pilfered Palm Pilot, and a little peeved about a total laptop failure, rather than do the right thing by making my way to an internet cafe and renting computer time to post, I took the easy way out and spent most every waking moment going from protest to march to rally and totally blew off my blogligations....
More tomorrow, and some pics as soon as I get them organized.
In the meantime, most or all of the blogs linked at left have convention and protest coverage.