"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 2, 2023
You DARE question MY POWER?!?
I’ll show YOU who’s the boss, you little pissants!
Mitch McConnell
Senate Repugnicunt Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of KY has removed Senators Rick Scott of FL, and Mike Lee of UT from the powerful Commerce Committee in apparent retaliation for Scott’s challenge to McConnell’s leadership, and for Lee’s support of Scott’s effort.
The Commerce Committee has broad jurisdiction over numerous federal agencies, is considered a prestigious assignment, and McConnell had exclusive power to decide whether Scott and Lee would remain on the Committee because it was the third so-called “A-list” committee assignment both held.
Scott is also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, while Lee is a member of the prestigious Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Scott had more seniority on the Commerce Committee than Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who also serves on two other “A-list” committees — Banking, and Environment and Public Works committees — and Lee had more seniority than Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who also sits on the Appropriations Committee and is the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
McConnell replaced Scott, Lee, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — who left the Commerce Committee to take a coveted seat on the Finance Committee — with Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, October 3, 2022
Partisan politics makes enemies of men & women who would otherwise be friends.
Matt Gaetz is a prime example of that, as is Marjorie Taylor Green, and Colorado High School dropout Lauren Boebert, as is Ted “Canun” Cruz, as are several others. Those individuals exist to serve themselves, and their interests, personally, without respect for their constituency’s wishes, or expressed desires. It is the most egregious example and type of self-seeking, and a callous disregard for the well-being and lives of others.
During Texas’ statewide energy crisis (electrical & NatGas) Ted “Cancun” Cruz and his family fled to Cancun, Mexico, where they partied and vacationed for several days. Then, presumably struck by pangs of conscience, Ted departed earlier than his family — but only by a few days. Of course, the best part was hearing Ted try and justify his actions by saying something about “work,” which for him is warming a seat in the Senate.
That is, if one doesn’t count him as being a constantly-generating bag of hot noxious gas on Capitol Hill whom is known for its enormous volume of putrid output… which, of course, he is.
But Matt Gaetz… don’t you wonder what ever became of the investigation into his behavior with now-plead-guilty sex trafficking pal Joel Greenberg? Seems Federal Prosecutors found that the 2 most central and most important witnesses were “unreliable” — Joel Greenberg, and the then-17-year-old young woman —
Federal Prosecutors were examining whether Greenberg paid women to have sex with Gaetz,
and whether the two shared sexual partners,
including the 17-year-old girl at issue in Greenberg’s case.
— which would hamper any prosecution attempt — and so for that primary reason, declined to prosecute.
KEY BACKGROUND, via Forbes: “Greenberg, who was elected as tax collector in 2016, was arrested last summer on charges of stalking and using social media to impersonate an opponent. An ensuing investigation — including a raid of Greenberg’s home — resulted in him being accused of soliciting a girl between the ages of 14 and 17 for sex, wire fraud, conspiracy to bribe a public official and theft of government property. That probe reportedly found evidence linking him to Gaetz, prompting a Justice Department investigation into whether Greenberg procured women for Gaetz and whether the Florida Republican had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl whom he paid to travel with him.”
Given Greenberg’s case history, Jurors would most likely NOT be inclined to believe sworn testimony from him, who as a politician, fabricated a false story against a schoolteacher who was campaigning against him as Tax Collector. Greenberg anonymously sent letters to the school where the teacher worked, and falsely claimed that the teacher had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a student — an allegation similar to the Gaetz case — which was but 1 charge of 6 to which Greenberg plead guilty. The other charges to which Greenberg plead guilty were identity theft, stalking, wire fraud, conspiracy to bribe a public official, and sex trafficking of a minor.
“Nobody’s going to believe anything that Joel Greenberg says by itself. His statements would need to be corroborated by testimony or evidence,” said David Bear, a lawyer for the schoolteacher.
What a lucky strike for Gaetz, eh?
Gaetz Maintains Innocence As Associate Admits Introducing ‘Other Adult Men’ To Minor For Paid Sex In Guilty Plea Deal
— Introduced her to “other adult men” who “engaged in commercial sex acts” with her.
Exactly what are “commercial sex acts”? Is that anything like cattle insemination? What about its collection? Is that also a sex act? And, to the extent that humans are involved with animal sex acts, that makes for a good headline.
Gotta’ sell those papers, don’cha know?
But, what kind of human being would CONTINUOUSLYvoteAGAINST helping their own fellowman, especially during time of natural disaster?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, August 21, 2021
Florida man, eh?
El Stupido MAXIMO!
Ron DeSantis, Republican Florida Governor
Goddamn Ron Deathsantis is a FUCKING MORON!!
Let’s put this in perspective, shall we?
Try this on for size:
DeSantis maintains clothes can be detrimental for children’s development and that younger children simply don’t wear clothes properly. But board members in the counties of Broward, home to Fort Lauderdale, and Alachua, home to Gainesville, decided not to allow parents to easily opt out of the clothing mandate as surging cases of severe second degree sunburn fueled by climate change began straining hospitals.
How does THAT fit, eh?
Yup.
Deese Flahda fokes ah nutz!
Oh… and WHO IS LITERALLY DEFUNDING GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, INCLUDING PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
Yup. You guessed it!
Goddamn Republicans.
Banana Republics are run by Banana Republicans.
Banana Republicans specialize in, and are expert at, a psychological manipulation technique called “projection.”
Projection is the practice of accusing others of doing the very thing that the accuser is doing. They “project” the action upon others whom they hope to revile by so doing.
Banana Republicans accuse Democrats of “defunding” the police, and yet, here they (Ron Deathsantis being their chief exemplar) are, LITERALLY defunding the “socialist” public schools.
Oh… and ANOTHER THING:
Banana Republicans decry “socialism” (though they NEVER actually define it) as being government involvement in anything.
So, using that measure, that metric, that (perverted) “definition,” ALL government is socialist — which makes Ron Deathsantis the Chief Socialist of the Socialist State of Florida.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, August 2, 2021
If coronavirus disease could talk, that’s what it would say.
Because right now, those whom have resisted getting vaccinated are largely conservative White Republican men.
A recent poll conducted by Monmouth University’s Polling Insitute found that 73% of self-identified Republicans oppose face mask and social distancing guidelines in their state, while 16% of those who remain vehemently opposed to getting the vaccine “believe Covid is a hoax or they are unlikely to get infected. Which means there may be very little that can be done at this point to change their minds,” said Patrick D. Murray, Founding Director of Monmouth University’s independent Polling Institute. Among those who admit they will not get the vaccine if they can avoid it, 70% either identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and only 29% of Republicans blame vaccine opposition for most of the recent rise in COVID-19 infection cases.
Ron DeSantis (b.1978), Republican Governor of Florida since January 8, 2019, barely defeated Andrew Gillum, the Democratic Mayor of Tallahassee by a margin of 0.4%. At age 42, he is the nation’s youngest governor.
And they’re dying like flies in places like Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis — who himself is vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen single-dose viral vector-type vaccine — has steadfastly refused to do anything to protect his state’s citizens from the ravages of coronavirus disease infection, and has staunchly refused mandating face/nose covering use in public spaces, and even recently signed an executive orderPROHIBITING school districts from requiring staff and students to wear protective masks.
That, as news of findings published by the CDC of an outbreak in Provincetown, Barnstable County, Massachusetts – a resort town and summertime getaway location on the tip of Cape Cod – occurring among fully-inoculated individuals after participating in summer events and large public gatherings between July 3 and July 17, in which 469 cases of COVID-19 infection were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled there, of which 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients.
The “great unknown” — even among researchers — throughout development, testing, and emergency approval of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNtech mRNA type vaccines, and the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen viral vector type vaccine has been: Read the rest of this entry »
“In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.
“Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”
A month later, the New York Times noted that Judge Wachtler believed that Grand Juries “operate more often as the prosecutor’s pawn than the citizen’s shield.”
That belief – that Prosecutors can get Grand Juries to do whatever they want them to do – may sound familiar to anyone who has read, or heard, news items of the criticisms of almost any Grand Jury in the United States.
But, of course, the adage doesn’t always true.
At least not in this instance, when the Feds have the goods on their will-plead-guilty-Monday-morning 17 May 2021 suspect – such as DNA and fingerprints – and as an unexpected by-product of the investigation are – more than likely – working on another very closely-related suspect, who – as of yet – remains unnamed, and unindicted.
That as-yet unnamed, and unindicted suspect would be Florida’s Republican Representative for the 1st Congressional District, Matt Gaetz.
Gatez and Greenberg are each quintessential examples of a Florida Manchild. They’re each multi-millionaires from daddy’s money – Greenberg from his father’s dental clinics, and Gaetz from his father’s pharmaceutical interests – and are, as such, spoiled brats and children of privilege who think the world is their oyster.
One “Florida Man” in the headline, of course, is Joel Greenberg, who was formerly a Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida, and a very good buddy to the other Florida Man, the Banana Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz of the state’s 1st Congressional District in Fort Walton.
After his election to public office, Greenberg immediately began ingratiating himself to Trump supporters, and spoke at a rally in Sanford, FL in late 2016. Investigative reporting by the New York Times found that Greenberg and Gaetz had initially met one another through their support of Trump some time in 2017 and in June that year, Gaetz suggested to Greenberg that he consider campaigning for U.S. Congress. And on July 8 that year, Greenberg posted on Twitter a picture himself, along with convicted Federal felon, Nixon aficionado and political dirty-trickster Roger Stone, and Gaetz.
In this September 30, 2019, file photo, Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg talks to the Orlando Sentinel during an interview at his office in Lake Mary, Florida. As a key figure in the federal investigation of Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, Greenberg is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges next week. Joel Greenberg will appear Monday, 17 May 2021 in Federal court in Orlando, Florida for a change of plea hearing, according to court documents. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)
Investigation into Greenberg’s dealings was first initiated by the Secret Service, in response to complaints that he improperly used county resources to mine Bitcoin… after cryptocurrency mining computers he’d purchased with taxpayer dollars for his private personal use caused an electrical system overload, resulting in a fire, which altogether caused over $7000 worth of uninsured damage to Seminole County property.
When the Feds wrapped up their investigation into Greenberg and his activities, they had leveled a 33 count indictment of violating several Federal laws – on charges ranging from stalking to sex trafficking, and conspiracy to fraud – so a plea deal down to 6 is a significant reduction – a very nearly 82% reduction.
David Weinstein, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said of Greenberg’s plea deal that, “His cooperation requires him to be providing truthful testimony and to provide it at the government’s request.”
As part of his plea agreement, on Monday, 17 May 2021 in Orlando at the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Joel Greenberg will admit to recruiting women for commercial sexual exploitation, paying them over $70K from 2016 to 2018, including at least one underage girl then-aged 17, whom he paid to have sex with him, and with others, including Matt Gaetz.
Count One: Sex Trafficking of a Child – 18 USC § 1591
Count Eight: Producing a False ID – 18 US § 1028(a)(1)
Count Nine: Aggravated Identity Theft – 18 USA § 1028A
Count Fourteen: Wire Fraud – 18 USC § 1343
Count Twenty-Four: Stalking – 18 USC § 2261A
County Twenty-Six: Conspiracy – 18 USC § 371
Minimum & Maximum Penalties
Count One: Mandatory Minimum 10 years, up to life, $250,000 fine, supervised release not less than 5 years up to life, special assessment $100
Count Eight: Maximum sentence 15 years, $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Nine: Mandatory Minimum 2 years (consecutive to any other conviction), $250,000 fine, 1 year supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Fourteen: Maximum 20 years, $250,000 fine or 2x gross loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Twenty-Four: 5 years maximum $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Twenty-Six: Maximum 15 years, $250,000 fine or twice gross gain or loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100 – because offense was committed while on pre-trial release, and was warned about it
Federal prosecutors say that Greenberg abused his public office as Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida not only by embezzling $400,000, but also by improperly using a statewide driver license database to “investigate” information about sexual partners, including a then-17-year old girl with whom he, and others had paid to have sex with.
He was also charged with numerous violations of the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, on multiple counts of producing a fraudulent identification document and creating false identification documents, along with aggravated identity theft.
Specifically, Greenberg also abused his elected office by using “his access to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office to take surrendered driver licenses before they were shredded,” and then he “used the surrendered driver licenses that he had taken to cause fake driver licenses to be produced that had his photograph but the personal information of the victims whose driver licenses he had taken.”
Prosecutors also say that Greenberg’s corrupt house of cards began to crumble with a series of falsified letters which Greenberg had crafted and mailed [fraudulent use of U.S. Mail] which purported to be from a non-existent “very concerned student” enrolled at a private prep school where Brian Beute – a Republican candidate for Tax Collector and political opponent – taught music, and falsely alleged that the music teacher (Greenberg’s political opponent) had engaged in sexual misconduct with another student.
As part of that Roger-Stone-initiated ruse, he also created fake social media accounts in order to pose as Beute, or others, in an attempt to discredit him.
Republicans excel, are expert in, and frequent users of, the tactic of psychological projection – falsely claiming that an opponent is engaging in the very activities which they (the accuser) are/have engaged in.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg III testified in court that investigators found Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA on the letters, and traced the fake social media accounts to his computer’s IP address.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 30, 2021
Banana Republicans are 100% pure hypocrites.
Matt Gaetz
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (CD-1) and a group of other House Republicans on Friday, 30 April 2021 introduced legislation to defund the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a law enforcement and investigative arm of U.S. Postal Service.
American intelligence agencies have debriefed Congress and issued reports about the serious threat to national security posed by domestic terrorists, particularly White supremacists, neo-Nazis and other racist groups such as Proud Boys, and others, following their concerted attack upon Congress on January 6, 2021 as they were performing their Constitutionally-mandated duties by certifying election results. Those groups, and others sympathetic with them, primarily used the radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram to coordinate their efforts, and attack.
LEFT to RIGHT: Donna Mosing, spouse of Greg Mosing; Kristi Noem; Ted Nugent, spouse of Shemane Nugent.
However, a week before he made that announcement, Nugent’s wife Shemane posted a photo on Instagram which cross-posted to Twitter, of them standing with South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem and Republican donor Greg Mosing and his wife, Donna, alongside a private jet aircraft. None of them were wearing any type of protective nose/mouth covering.
She wrote: “Thank you for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem, on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!).”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 2, 2021
So the little “Florida Man” is trippin’ on the illicit street drug commonly known as “ecstasy” while paying to have sex with underage girls, hauling them across state lines, and then, showing nude photographs of them to fellow Members of Congress.
What a family guy!
True “family values,” eh?
Great “conservative values,” right?
Let’s check the list:
✅1.) Child molester
✅2.) Pedophile
✅3.) Child Sexual Predator
✅4.) Child Sexual Trafficker
✅5.) Liar
✅6.) Illicit drug abuser
✅7.) All-around low life
✅8.) “Florida Man”
✅9.) Hypocrite
✅10.) Soon to be ousted from Congress
Hope NOT to see you later, you miserable POSSOB!
We’ll be looking for your next assignment IN FEDERAL PRISON!
There, you’ll likely have the stuffing beat out of you, because in prison, child molesters are the LOWEST OF THE LOW.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, March 31, 2021
He’s a “Florida Man” to be certain, and his Twitter bio states as much. He’s the moral equivalent of Jeffrey Epstein. His “NAY” vote was the EXCLUSIVE – the SOLITARY – the ONLY vote against a human sex trafficking bill. And his flimsy “excuse” or rationale why, is as weak as water. He’ll be out soon as just another worthless, hypocritical, flash-in-the-pan piece of GOP garbage.
Matt Gaetz, On The Ropes From Juvenile Sex Trafficking Investigation, Finds Few Friends In The GOP
by Juliegrace Brufke & Mike Lillis
03/31/21 05:33 PM EDT
In four years on Capitol Hill, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has experienced a meteoric rise to national prominence — one fueled by a close alliance with former President Trump, a penchant for political theatrics and a no-apologies brand of conservatism that’s made him a darling of the right-wing cable outlets.
Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, and snazzy suit.
Yet this week, facing a federal investigation into allegations of a sexual relationship with an underage girl, Gaetz is finding himself in an unusual spot: On the ropes and virtually alone.
Few of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues are coming to the defense of the third-term Floridian following a New York Times report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct with — and interstate trafficking of — a minor roughly two years ago. And a number of Republicans, while warning against jumping to premature conclusions about Gaetz’s conduct, also suggested they wouldn’t miss him if he were gone.
“I don’t know anything about this situation other than to say he has certainly made enemies and painted a bull’s-eye on his back,” said one Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive topic. “This appears to be a self-inflicted wound.”
Gaetz has vehemently denied that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old-girl — the central allegation of the Justice Department probe, which was launched under the Trump administration. Gaetz contends that he and his family have been targeted by a former DOJ official in an extortion scheme seeking millions of dollars to have the allegations vanish.
In a series of tweets, statements and media interviews Tuesday evening, he maintained that Read the rest of this entry »
Kinda’ “ironic,” wouldn’t you say, that the QAnon conspiracy theory folks who wrongly thought, and therefore targeted the Democrats for alleged involvement in some global child sex-trafficking cabal have sided with the exact ones who are actually participating in that very activity… Republicans.
Remember: Psychological projection – accusing others of the thing you’re guilty of – is a tool/technique extensively employed not only by the GOP, but in droves by the 45th President.
BTW… Matt Gaetz’ official actions as a Member of Congress are rather peculiar.
Matt Gaetz then…
In 2017, Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Fort Walton Beach representing FL’s 1st CD, was the ONLY member of Congress to vote “NAY” on a law that gave the Federal government more power and money to fight human trafficking – S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1536
THE ONLY ONE.
Vote Question: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass
Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act
Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, cuff links, and snazzy suit.
Gaetz Republican Florida Nay
S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act
Roll Call Vote 695, December 19, 2017, 4:56PM ET
115th Congress, 1st Session
418 YEAS
1 NAY
12 NOT VOTING
NOT VOTING
Bridenstine Republican Oklahoma Not Voting
Brooks (AL) Republican Alabama Not Voting
Cummings Democratic Maryland Not Voting (was sick & getting treatment)
Kennedy Democratic Massachusetts Not Voting
Loudermilk Republican Georgia Not Voting
Messer Republican Indiana Not Voting
Napolitano Democratic California Not Voting
Pocan Democratic Wisconsin Not Voting
Renacci Republican Ohio Not Voting
Scalise Republican Louisiana Not Voting
Smith (TX) Republican Texas Not Voting
Thompson (MS) Democratic Mississippi Not Voting
Note this: Gaetz tweeted that his father was wearing a “wire” by the FBI.
Why would he broadcast that information, thereby spoiling the investigation?
…and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the FBI tonight was intended to thwart that investigation.
No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets…
Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, age 38, a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter, who also said that Federal officials are investigating whether, or not, Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
The threat is real.
Russians aren’t only interested in our elections.
Oldsmar, Florida is northeast of Tampa.
thehill.com
Hackers Breach, Attempt To Poison Florida City’s Water Supply
By Maggie Miller
02/08/21 05:25 PM EST
Officials said Monday that a hacker had breached and attempted to poison the water supply for the city of Oldsmar, Fla., last week, but had been unsuccessful.
Pinellas County, Fla., Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced at a press conference Monday that the hacker had gained control of the operating system at the city’s water treatment facility and had attempted to increase the amount of sodium hydroxide in the water from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million.
“This is obviously a significant and potentially dangerous increase,” Gualtieri told reporters. “Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners. It is used to control water acidity and remove metals from drinking water in water treatment plants.”
The hack took place Friday, with one intrusion occurring early in the morning, and a second in the afternoon.
Gualtieri stressed that the treatment center’s operator immediately noticed the increase, with the hacker hijacking the mouse and opening various applications to make the change. The operator on duty immediately reversed the changes made.
“At no time was there a significant adverse effect on the water being treated. Importantly, the public was never in danger,” Gualtieri said. “Even if the plant operator had not quickly reversed the increased amount of sodium hydroxide, it would have taken between 24 and 36 hours for that water to hit the water supply system, and there are redundancies in place where the water had been checked before it was released.”
The sheriff said that his office was working with the FBI and other federal partners to investigate the breach, alongside state and local authorities, and had warned other critical infrastructure groups over the weekend. Gualtieri said the hacker responsible could potentially face state and federal felony charges if caught.
The breach took place two days before the Super Bowl, which took place this year in Tampa, Fla. The city of Oldsmar, which has a population of around 15,000, is located just outside Tampa.
Gualtieri said his office had warned other water treatment plants in the area to be vigilant for attempted cyberattacks, but said there was no evidence any other critical systems had been breached in recent days.
“Right now we do not have a suspect identified, but we do have leads that we are following,” Gualtieri told reporters. “We don’t know right now whether the breach originated from within the United States or outside the country. We also do not know why the Oldsmar system was targeted, and have no knowledge of any other systems being unlawfully accessed.”
Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel said at the same press conference that while there were redundancies in the system that almost certainly would have caught the attempted poisoning even if the operator had not noticed the hack, it was critical to be aware of cyber risks.
“The important thing is to put everyone on notice, and I think that is really the purpose of today is to make sure that everyone realizes that these kinds of bad actors are out there, it’s happening, so really take a hard look at what you have in place,” Seidel said.
Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure groups have increased in recent years, with hospitals nationwide seeing a spike in attempted hacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent hack of IT group SolarWinds by Russian operatives compromising much of the federal government for over a year.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) put out a joint alert last year warning that foreign actors were targeting U.S. critical infrastructure in cyberspace, including water, gas, and electricity systems.
This came months after CISA issued a separate alert warning of potential cyberattacks on critical infrastructure after a U.S. pipeline operator was targeted in 2019.
CISA, which is the key federal agency responsible for securing critical infrastructure, declined to comment to The Hill on if they are involved in the investigation in Oldsmar.
Publix Gave $100K to DeSantis’ Re-Election Campaign Last Month
by Jessica Lipscomb<
January 12, 2021 – 10:26am
If you’ve been paying attention, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Publix — Florida’s cult-favorite grocery store — made a six-figure contribution to the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, last month.
For years, the Lakeland-based company and members of its founding family have supported conservative causes and backed efforts to oppose progressive legislation, including the legalization of medical marijuana and the regulation of polystyrene, better known by the brand name Styrofoam. In 2018, Publix leaders gave $670,000 to a campaign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam. The next year, heirs to the Publix fortune donated $28,000 to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and $25,000 to a PAC supporting DeSantis’ re-election bid.
Last month, Publix doubled down on its support for the business-friendly governor. In December, the grocery chain made four $25,000 contributions to the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC, which has raised more than $50 million to date. Publix previously donated $25,000 to the committee in January 2020 and another $25,000 in November 2019, according to state records.
A spokesperson for Publix’s Florida stores did not respond to an email from New Times asking why the company supports DeSantis’ re-election.
The grocery chain has previously come under fire for its political donations. After survivors of the Parkland shooting reamed Publix for its support of Putnam, who described himself as a “proud NRA sellout,” the company in 2018 said it would re-evaluate its corporate processes for political advocacy. But the controversy died down weeks later, and Publix continued to make campaign contributions.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Publix COVID vaccine announcement.
While many businesses have suffered because of the COVID-19 pandemic, grocery stores like Publix have enjoyed record sales as more people shifted to eating at home. The Lakeland Ledger reported that Publix’s profits rose 41 percent for the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019.
Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, succeeded Rick Scott, also a Republican
While acknowledging the state’s Unemployment Compensation system was previously aged 40 or 50 years, and therefore, by some means, inefficient, it was revamped in the last 5, or 6 years during the administration of then-Governor Rick Scott, also a Republican.
While he didn’t explicitly blame the former Governor, he left little room for speculation that Rick Scott had a hand in frustrating a system for claimants and claims upon the state’s UC system.
An earlier news item published 28 May 2020 by ABC News affiliate WFTS-TV ch28 in Tampa, identified that Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, May 29, 2020
Surely Republican hypocrisy and lies surprise no one any longer.
Now, about that “swamp” thing…
White House Press Secretary Voted By Mail 12 Times In 12 Years
by Steven Portnoy, CBS News
May 28, 2020
Washington — White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany has voted by mail a dozen times in the last 10 years, according to Florida voter records reviewed by CBS News, a revelation that comes amid her own criticisms of efforts to expand mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany
A voting history report from the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections shows that McEnany “voted absentee” in every election, both general and primary, since November 2008. At times during that span, McEnany, a Tampa native, attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most recently, she voted by mail in Florida’s presidential primary in March.
While the report shows that McEnany voted “absentee,” Hillsborough County election officials said that its system uses the phrase “voted absentee” for any voter who votes by mail, whether they are in the county when they receive a ballot or not. Florida voters can opt to submit ballots by mail for any reason, according to the state Division of Elections.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, April 27, 2020
We have been told that the MINIMUM asymptomatic (without symptoms) range was 30-50% for the general public, which means that the number of POSITIVE cases is very likely UNDER–COUNTED by that amount, and therefore at LEAST 30-50% HIGHER than tests show, precisely because without symptoms, few, if any, are being tested.
The rationale such individuals have is, ‘I don’t have symptoms, so why should I get tested?’
And that is the classic “Typhoid Mary” Mallon case of the early 20th Century in which Mary Mallon infected many with Typhoid Fever (some of whom died), and NEVER – not even once – EVER showed any signs or symptoms of disease – not even on her deathbed.
And she did NOT die of Typhoid Fever.
And what you’re about to read is PRECISELY what needs to happen to EVERYONE in America.
(Reuters) – When the first cases of the new coronavirus surfaced in Ohio’s prisons, the director in charge felt like she was fighting a ghost.
“We weren’t always able to pinpoint where all the cases were coming from,” said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, they began mass testing.
They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.
“It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities.
As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms.
The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic — contagious but not physically sick — may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus.
“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.”
Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.
The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017 — nearly half of which is in state prisons. Smaller numbers are locked in federal prisons and local jails, which typically hold people for relatively short periods as they await trial.
State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing — checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness — but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.
Tennessee said a majority of its positive cases didn’t show symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said Read the rest of this entry »
Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said he was surprised to learn that foreign nationals can legally buy guns in the U.S., and said, “I think that they should definitely look at that.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R)
Presumably, the “they” to whom he was referring were Federal lawmakers. You know… folks like Florida U.S. Senator Rick Scott, whom himself was the previous former Florida Governor before being elected as U.S. Senator in the 2018 election.
It’s kinda’ funny when you think about it – Republicans don’t like it when some nutzo with a LEGALLY PURCHASED FIREARM starts shooting up the place. But, what do they do in response?
Bupkis.
Nada.
Crickets.
Speaking of Mohammed Alshamrani, the Saudi terrorist training at Pensacola Naval Air Station who purchased a pistol and used it to kill several military service members on base Governor DeSantis said, “That’s a federal loophole he took advantage of. I’m a big supporter of the Second Amendment – but the Second Amendment is so that we the American people can keep and bear arms. It does not apply to Saudi Arabians. He had no constitutional right to do that, for sure.”
Vice President Mike Pence administers the Senate oath of office to Rick Scott, R-FL, accompanied by his wife Ann during a mock swearing in ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, as the 116th Congress begins.
CLEARLY, Governor DeSantis does not understand Constitutional law, because there’s NO “loophole.” For if a Foreign National comes here, they too have First Amendment Rights, Second Amendment Rights, and they too have rights under law to fair trial. They too have rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, September 18, 2019
USA Today, ever the paragon of journalistic integrity (hardly), has reported on a young man and woman who were arrested around 11:30PM ET in Nassau County, FL for DUI.
The problem began while they were riding their bicycles.
According to Jordan Culver, writer of the article, an unnamed “Nassau County Sheriff’s Office deputy saw Megan Mondanaro, 35, and Aaron Seth Thomas, 31, riding bikes without lights on around 11:30 p.m. Friday in Fernandina Beach.”
According to the article published September 17, 2019, 6:49PM ET, “Both riders cut into the middle of the road and were nearly hit by a car, which led the deputy to conduct a traffic stop, according to the [Deputy’s] report.”
In the report, the Deputy wrote that when the pair was stopped, he “detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from both of them.”
The news story stated that the Deputy “also noted Mondanaro and Thomas both had bloodshot and watery eyes and were slurring their words.”
The story then states that the two were “arrested on DUI charges and placed in the back of the deputy’s patrol car.”
The arresting Deputy then searched Mr. Thomas’ backpack and found 7 full cans, and 1 empty can, of the alcoholic malt beverage “Four Loko.”
The arresting officer’s report then stated in part that, “While I was outside my patrol vehicle, Megan and Aaron took their clothes off and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, July 8, 2019
Alexander Acosta’s resignation letter
UPDATE: Sunday, 14 July 2019 – Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, the former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was intimately and directly involved in the Federal government’s non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, whom Acosta granted immunity from prosecution in lieu of his guilty plea to felony charges by the State of Florida of solicitation of prostitution from an underage girl, has announced his resignation 12 July 2019, to be effective one week later, 19 July 2019.
–//–
Yesterday (Saturday, 07 July 2019), after his private Boeing 727 landed in New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport from Paris, multi-millionaire hedge fund manager and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force on at least one charge related to sex trafficking. He will be held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center – a nearby high-security Federal jail which has held notorious criminals like international narcotrafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman – until the Federal indictment against him will be unsealed Monday in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in Manhattan.
The news release of th indictment against him states in part that “JEFFREY EPSTEIN, 66, is charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.”
The beginnings of Epstein’s downfall occurred in 2005 when a 14-year-old girl told Palm Beach police that an older man named “Jeff” had molested her at his residence, which was an unmistakably unique two-story pink mansion on a dead-end street. From that point, police investigations found a pattern of behavior involving nearly 30 young girls, many whom told him they were under age at the time of the offenses.
The Florida State Attorney’s Office in Palm Beach claimed the victims’ testimony wasn’t credible because they were young girls, and only filed one felony count of soliciting underage prostitution against Epstein. In 2006, Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter accused prosecutors of giving special treatment to Epstein and referred the case to the FBI. Thereafter, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami drafted a 53-page indictment against Epstein, and an 82-page prosecution memorandum.
Under a controversial plea deal in 2007 with Alex Acosta, then U.S. Attorney in Miami, Epstein plead guilty in 2008 to charges by the State of Florida of Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, November 13, 2018
Arizona Representative Kyrsten Sinema D-CD9, has won the Senate race against opponent AZ Representative Martha McSally, R-CD2.
Arizona Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat who represented Congressional District 9, has won election over Representative Martha McSally, a Republican who represented the state’s Congressional District 2.
Her election is historical for at least two different reasons, the first being that she is the state’s first female US Senator, and second, she will be the first openly bisexual Member of Congress. She is also the first Democrat Arizonans have sent to the Senate since 1995 after Democrat Dennis DeConcini’s loss to Republican John Kyl.
Following the death of Republican Senator John McCain, who since 1987 was the state’s longest-serving senator, Republican Arizona Governor Doug Ducey temporarily appointed Kyl in September 2018 to fill the remainder of the term of that vacated seat. In a press conference following Governor Ducey’s announcement, Mr. Kyl said he would not seek re-election for the remainder of the term in the 2020 Special Election to fill the seat.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, November 10, 2018
Cindy McCain, widow of late Arizona Republican Senator John McCain (1936-2018)
Cindy McCain, widow of late Republican Arizona Senator John McCain, on Thursday, November 8, 2018 criticized the Arizona GOP about a state GOP-initiated lawsuit over counting mail-in ballots by Tweeting, “@AZGOP I am one of those mail in ballots. I was under the impression my vote was always counted.”
Her Tweet was in response to the Arizona GOP’s efforts to get a judge to issue orders to stop counting mail-in ballots in the race for US Senate to fill the seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, a Republican. The two candidates, Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema find themselves in extremely close competition.
Both candidates are also Arizona Congressional Representatives. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema has represented the 9th Congressional District, while Republican Martha McSally has represented the 2nd Congressional District.
In court Thursday morning November 8, 2018, state Republican leaders were challenging mail-in ballots in Yuma, Navajo, Apache and Maricopa counties after the GOP parties in those counties filed a lawsuit challenging the way counties verify signatures on mail-in ballots that are dropped off at the polls on Election Day. The lawsuit did NOT allege any type of fraud.
The US Census Bureau estimated the 2017 population of Apache County as 71,606; Navajo County as 108,956; Yuma County as 207,534; and Maricopa County as 4,307,033. Maricopa County is location of the Phoenix–Mesa–Glendale, AZ Metropolitan Statistical Area. Together, those four counties comprise 66.9% of Arizona’s 7,016,270 estimated 2017 population.
When the two parties met in court, there was little fanfare, no grandstanding, and no contentious sparks flew, so it made for very poor political theatre, though others nationally attempted to inject false explosive allegations and deceptive narratives into the matter by deliberately gross mischaracterization.
The primary point of the suit involved a much more mundane matter, and specifically, the legal challenge was focused upon on a lack of procedural consistency in the time frame that counties allowed voters to correct signature “issues” on mail-in ballots.
And in only a matter of minutes after the AZ GOP held a grandstanding news/press conference in which they made accusation saying, “The Democrats are stealing the election and we’re not going to allow it,” and immediately before the court hearing, all of the counties and the Republican groups had come to an agreement, which Judge Mahoney approved with no fanfare.
The settlement, was that all of Arizona’s 15 counties would allow voters to verify the signatures on their ballots through 5 p.m. on Nov. 14.
Martha McSally, R-AZ
Kyrsten Sinema, D-AZ
And the overriding irony of the matter, is that the counties whose election practices they ended up changing, were largely run by Republicans.
There were also an estimated 360,000 outstanding ballots still being counted statewide. Of those, an estimated 266,000 are from Maricopa County.
For now, Sinema is leading in Maricopa and Pima counties by a net 83,652 votes. McSally’s lead in the state’s other 13 counties is 65,113.
Arizona’s protracted vote-count is due in large part to the need to verify signatures for those who vote by mail, which represents the bulk of ballots.
So far, the Democrat Sinema is winning the Republican-leaning Maricopa County by 3.3 percentage points.
One reason the race and ballot count is so hotly contested, is because the Republicans are in jeopardy of losing a Senate seat in the state for the first time in 30 years. As well, what also makes this race particularly interesting, is that Maricopa County has traditionally been a GOP stronghold, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by 130,000.
But, in essence, here’s a nut of what’s been happening not only there, but in other states, as well.
In some states, there are so-called “exact match” laws, rules, or regulations concerning the signatures of voters who cast absentee, or mail-in ballots, and in essence, those “exact match” laws, rules, or regulations give broad discretion to anyone counting those ballots to exercise their personal opinion – untrained, non-expert, unscientific independent judgment – about someone’s signature, specifically, whether they believe it was signed by the person who attested to signing it, or not. In other words, no expertise is required.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 18, 2017
Debbie Wasserman Schultz should get out of politics. She has ruined any semblance of good will with voters of any political stripe, particularly and especially among Democrats. Her blatant covert violation of party policy and rules which was exposed by WikiLeaks still smarts among Democrats. It was corruption on the same level as that of Trump. Pure & Simple. Both parties are sadly corrupt, and virtually no one has the people’s back.
Toxic Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Appear at Leadership Blue Gala
By Leslie Wimes
June 13, 2017 – 10:00am
Clearly the new regime at the Florida Democratic Party learned nothing from the chorus of boos that Debbie Wasserman Schultz received at the DNC convention.
The resounding chants of “shame” spewed at the disgraced former DNC chairwoman, forced to resign in infamy, hasn’t convinced the failing party that putting the most divisive figure in recent Florida Democratic political history on stage at its biggest fundraising event will be a big mistake.
Whose idea is this? Wasserman Schultz’s?
Is she still pulling the strings in the party? If the new chair, Stephen Bittel, thinks this is a great idea, then perhaps his judgment has to be seriously questioned.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 28, 2017
Mullets in a box ready for the Mullet Toss®
Southerners are quirky. There’s no denying that.
For example, this weekend will mark the 33d anniversary of a fish throwing contest on Alabama’s Gulf Coast.
Yes, 33 years ago, Jimmy Louis, a local musician at a bar in Orange Beach, Alabama thought it might be oddly entertaining to have people toss a dead fish across the invisible Alabama/Florida state line into Perdido Key, Florida – an adjacent unincorporated community.
Interestingly, some agreed.
And thus began the Annual Interstate Mullet Toss®.
The image is of a man later identified as Thomas Mcguinness of Port Charlotte, Florida, holding a cat by the scruff of its neck, who was subsequently investigated by Charlotte County Animal Control authorities. According to a report by the Fort Myers/Cape Coral News-Press, “after identifying the man in the picture as Thomas McGuinness, Animal Control officers met with him and all responsible parties, verifying that all of the domestic animals were alive and unharmed.”
Some folks get their panties in a wad over anything. Note the date on the post.
I find no problem with that image, for the following reasons:
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Hyperactivity Helps Children With ADHD To Learn
When children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are supposed to learn, adults usually ask them to sit still. However, a study published in the “Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology” now suggests that physical hyperactivity is essential for the cognitive learning processes.
Researchers from the University of Central Florida in Orlando conducted trials in 52 boys aged from 8 to 12. Of the group, 29 boys had ADHD, while the others showed normal development. The study subjects were asked to Read the rest of this entry »
A Florida man named Phuc Kieu tried to sexually assault and rob a man on Sunday, the Gainesville Sun reported.
Kieu — more formally Phuc X. Kieu — was watching gay porn on a portable DVD player in his car when a second man walked by after withdrawing $220 from an ATM, according to local authorities.
Since implementation of a law began July 1, 2014, the Tennessee Department of Human Services found only 65 out of 39,121 people who applied for a cash assistance program known as “Families First in Tennessee,” tested positive for illegal substances, or medicines for which they had no prescription.
That’s less than 1% of all applicants who tested positive.
That information was provided provided to The Tennessean by the Tennessee DHR.
An extra 116 refused to participate in an initial drug screening questionnaire, which automatically disqualified them for benefits.
The average monthly benefit of the cash assistance program was $165 per month in December – or $1,980 per year. If they otherwise would have qualified to have received assistance, the total value of the benefit to the 116 people who refused to take the test would have been $230,000 annually – if they had otherwise qualified for benefits.
Since the law began, 609 people have been asked to take a drug test: 544 tested negative, and 65 tested positive. Of those who tested positive, 40 were referred for substance abuse evaluation, and 13 enrolled in a drug treatment facility or recovery support group as a condition of receiving benefits.
The total cost to Tennessee taxpayers so far has been $23,592.
—
There’s a meme which circulates on FaceBook and presumably, in other places as well, which appears similarly as this:
Drug Test Public Assistance Recipients Meme
Honestly, the idea is a failure.
But you’d rarely – if ever – hear about it’s failures.
Florida was the first state to tread that path. What they learned was surprising. And then, the law was struck down by a Federal court. The states that embark upon Florida’s path will be wa$ting their citizen$ taxe$.
Only 2.6% of Florida applicants failed the drug test.
“Because the Florida law requires that applicants who pass the test be reimbursed for the cost, an average of $30, the cost to the state was $118,140. This is more than would have been paid out in benefits to the people who failed the test. As a result, the testing cost the government an extra $45,780.”
The purported savings in Florida’s program will be negligible after administrative costs and reimbursements for the drug tests are taken into account.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, June 14, 2014
ATTENTION ALABAMA RESIDENTS:
Please continue to fund out-of-state K-12 schools, and send Tennessee, Georgia & Florida kids to college by purchasing Tennessee, Georgia & Florida Lottery tickets.
• Today, in Tennessee, over 100,000 students benefit annually, and Republican Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill written by Republican TN legislators which will pay for 2 years of community/junior/technical college education for every Tennessee high school graduate.
• In Georgia, over 1,600,000 students have benefited from Georgia Lottery.
• In Florida, over 650,000 students have received over $4,290,000,000 since 1986 to attend higher education.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 4, 2014
It occurred to me recently in a couple conversations I had with friends in various parts of our United States, that equal representation is a matter with which we still struggle.
While on occasion I’ve opined about injustice through inequality – the United States’ Constitution guarantees Equal Protection and Equal Rights under law via the 14th Amendment – it occurred to me recently that there are some who “just don’t get it.”
More to the point, I was spurred by a photograph sent to me by a friend in one of our Northern sister states – the Land of the Frozen Chosen, sometimes also referred to as “The Great White North.”
It was a photograph of my friend’s co-worker which sparked my interest, and subsequent curiosity.
The co-worker was Afro-American, aka “Black.”
I was somewhat surprised to see a Black person in Minnesota, so I queried the Census Bureau for some Quick Statistics about our United States.
Here’s what I found:
Only 5.5% of Minnesota’s population is Black.
In comparison to the United States at large, 13.1% of our American population in general is Black. And in Alabama, 26.5% are Black, while in neighboring Mississippi, 37.4% of that state’s residents are Black. Alabama’s Eastern neighbor Georgia has a closely similar percentage with a 31.2% Black population, while Tennessee is nearly half, with a 17% Black population.
Examining some other states, I found that Alabama’s Southern neighbor, Florida has a very closely similar Black population with 16.6%, while Louisiana’s Black population is just about double with 32.4%. The “Natural State” of Arkansas has a 15.6% Black population, while North and South Carolina are almost evenly tied with 22 & 28% respectively.
On the other hand, Texas has a lower Black population than either Tennessee or Arkansas with only 12.3%.
Kentucky? Only 8.1% of Kentuckians are Black.
Interestingly, of the 16 players on the Kentucky Wildcats Basketball team, only 6 are not Black. In other words, 62.5% of the team is Black – a clear majority. And yet, the state’s general population is completely and disproportionately unrepresentative of the team.
What about Virginia? With a 19.7% Black population, Virginia stands in distinct contrast to West Virginia, which only has a 3.5% Black population – a very stark contrast, indeed.
But what about some of the other Midwestern states?
Missouri has an 11.7% Black population, while only 3.2% of corn-fed Iowans are Black.
From Minnesota moving West, South Dakota has a mere 1.7% Black population, while Montana…
Well.. there just about no Black folks in that state, at all. Only a mere 0.6% – 6/10ths on one percent – of that state’s residents are Black.
A casual observation would be that it’s mighty White up North.
An alternate title for this entry might be: Walnuts, Pies, Strippers & Experts
Of course, that makes no sense. And for some, it makes neither cents, nor dollars.
But never you mind.
Pie and ice cream.
Who doesn’t like it?
Sounds dee-lish… right?
Any kind of pie, and almost any kind of ice cream. I say “any kind” with a caveat. Any kind EXCEPT Neapolitan. That’s horrid. Truly horrid. Whoever imagined the idea of “Neapolitan” ice cream is probably now suffering eternal punishment – a special torture reserved exclusively for the damned.
And, perhaps somebody should tell those folks.
I mean to refer to the folks that came up with a name like “Georgia Walnut Pie.”
WASHINGTON — In back-to-back arguments about drug-sniffing dogs, the Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed open to limiting their use outside homes but not near cars.
The first argument concerned Franky, a chocolate Labrador retriever who detected the smell of marijuana outside a Florida house. The police obtained a warrant to search the house based on Franky’s signal, and they found a marijuana-growing operation inside.
The court’s four liberal justices all asked questions that were skeptical of allowing dogs to sniff around near homes without probable cause. They were joined by one of the court’s conservatives, Justice Antonin Scalia, who sometimes staked out positions more protective of homeowners’ privacy than the lawyer for the defendant in the case.
The Supreme Court has said the privacy of the home is at the core of what is protected by the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. Justice Scalia is the author of the majority opinions in both a 5-to-4 decision in 2001 limiting the use of thermal-imaging technology to peer into homes and a unanimous ruling in January, on varying rationales, limiting the use of GPS tracking devices on cars.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, September 23, 2012
“The signature of the Roberts Court has been its willingness, even its eagerness, to overturn the work of legislatures. Brandishing a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Court has either struck down or raised questions about virtually every state and local gun-control law in the nation. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided earlier this year, the Court gutted the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law in service of a legal theory that contradicts about a century of law at the Court.”
—
Precedent and Prologue
Comment
by Jeffrey Toobin, December 6, 2010
Bush v Gore was the beginning of Republicans’ use of Judicial Activism
Momentous Supreme Court cases tend to move quickly into the slipstream of the Court’s history. In the first ten years after Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision that ended the doctrine of separate but equal in public education, the Justices cited the case more than twenty-five times. In the ten years after Roe v. Wade, the abortion-rights decision of 1973, there were more than sixty-five references to that landmark. This month marks ten years since the Court, by a vote of five-to-four, terminated the election of 2000 and delivered the Presidency to George W. Bush. Over that decade, the Justices have provided a verdict of sorts on Bush v. Gore by the number of times they have cited it: zero.
Both sides had their reasons for consigning the decision to history and leaving it there. In his concession speech on the day after the decision, Al Gore said simply, “It’s time for me to go.” He meant it, and he left politics for a life of entrepreneurship and good works. George W. Bush, for his part, found little reason to dwell on the controversial nature of his ascension to office, and in his memoir, “Decision Points,” he devotes less than a page to the Supreme Court decision. (“My first response was relief,” he writes of his reaction.) In public appearances, Antonin Scalia, a member of the majority in Bush v. Gore, regularly offers this message to people who question him about the decision: “Get over it!”
Even at the time, Bush v. Gore was treated as a kind of novelty item, a one-off decision that applied only to the peculiar facts then before the Justices. The majority itself seemed to want it that way. In the most famous sentence from the decision, the Justices wrote, “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.” (Unlike most weighty decisions, Bush v. Gore had no single author and was delineated “per curiam,” or by the Court, a designation the Justices usually reserve for minor cases.) In light of all these admonitions to leave the case be, might getting over it be the best advice?
Actually, no. To return briefly to the distant world of chads, hanging and otherwise, it’s worth recalling what Bush v. Gore was about. The pervasive uncertainty about the results of the election in Florida—at the time, Bush led by five hundred and thirty-seven votes out of nearly six million cast—prompted the Florida courts, interpreting Florida election law, to order a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes; that is, ballots that indicated no Presidential preference or more than one. (Chads were the tiny paper rectangles that voters were supposed to push through punch-card ballots.) That recount had already begun on Saturday, December 9th, when five Justices—Scalia, William H. Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas—issued a stay, barring the Florida authorities from continuing their labors. Three days later, the same five issued the per-curiam decision that stopped the recount once and for all.
What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, September 10, 2012
Transcript of Bill Clinton’s Speech to the Democratic National Convention
The following is the full text of former President Bill Clinton’s speech on Wednesday from the Democratic National Convention.
September 5, 2012
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Sustained cheers, applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Now, Mr. Mayor, fellow Democrats, we are here to nominate a president. (Cheers, applause.) And I’ve got one in mind. (Cheers, applause.)
I want to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of adversity and uncertainty. I want to nominate a man who ran for president to change the course of an already weak economy and then just six weeks before his election, saw it suffer the biggest collapse since the Great Depression; a man who stopped the slide into depression and put us on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs that he saved or created, there’d still be millions more waiting, worried about feeding their own kids, trying to keep their hopes alive.
I want to nominate a man who’s cool on the outside — (cheers, applause) — but who burns for America on the inside. (Cheers, applause.)
I want — I want a man who believes with no doubt that we can build a new American Dream economy, driven by innovation and creativity, but education and — yes — by cooperation. (Cheers.)
And by the way, after last night, I want a man who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama. (Cheers, applause.)
You know — (cheers, applause). I — (cheers, applause).
Now, folks, in Tampa a few days ago, we heard a lot of talk — (laughter) — all about how the president and the Democrats don’t really believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everybody to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.
This Republican narrative — this alternative universe — (laughter, applause) — says that every one of us in this room who amounts to anything, we’re all completely self-made. One of the greatest chairmen the Democratic Party ever had, Bob Strauss — (cheers, applause) — used to say that ever politician wants every voter to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself. (Laughter, applause.) But, as Strauss then admitted, it ain’t so. (Laughter.)
We Democrats — we think the country works better with a strong middle class, with real opportunities for poor folks to work their way into it — (cheers, applause) — with a relentless focus on the future, with business and government actually working together to promote growth and broadly share prosperity. You see, we believe that “we’re all in this together” is a far better philosophy than “you’re on your own.” (Cheers, applause.) It is.
So who’s right? (Cheers.) Well, since 1961, for 52 years now, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats, 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private sector jobs.
So what’s the job score? Republicans, 24 million; Democrats, 42 (million). (Cheers, applause.)
Now, there’s — (cheers, applause) — there’s a reason for this. It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. (Cheers, applause.) Why? Because poverty, discrimination and ignorance restrict growth. (Cheers, applause.) When you stifle human potential, when you don’t invest in new ideas, it doesn’t just cut off the people who are affected; it hurts us all. (Cheers, applause.) We know that investments in education and infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all the rest of us. (Cheers, applause.)
Now, there’s something I’ve noticed lately. You probably have too. And it’s this. Maybe just because I grew up in a different time, but though I often disagree with Republicans, I actually never Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Alabama‘s prison system will again be pushed to the taxpayers’ breaking point by stupidity such as this sentence. It is extreme – even with the increased severity of punishment required for habitual offenders.
Realistically, “Three Strikes and you’re out” only applies in baseball games. But someone thought it sounded cool, and morphed it into a law in California. Subsequently, California’s prison population has exploded because that state adopted that law. They’ve now seriously modified it. It may be time to rethink sentencing guidelines in Alabama. But the likelihood of that happening is practically negligible.
Thanks to our legislature, this man will now burden every honest Alabama taxpayer.
That’s not to say he and others like him should not be punished, but rather acknowledges the failure of a pop-culture-driven bumper sticker slogan to effectively remedy, ameliorate or mitigate criminality. In essence, there is little or nothing done to correct, and much done to punish. Oddly, every state has a “Department of Corrections,” rather than a ‘Department of Punishments.’ There’s a reason for that, and it’s because there is a two-fold purpose (to punish and correct), with the higher one being correction.
Yet standing in stark contrast is the as-yet-untried, and officially indefinitely delayed case of Amy Bishop, the Harvard PhD-educated biology professor who went on a shooting rampage and killed three, and wounded three other colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Even though she has a track record of mental instability, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 18, 2012
Slowly, but surely, the signs that our nation’s economy is improving are emerging.
They’re not rapid, they’re not massive, but they’re there.
And like a trickle that becomes a raging river, it’s beginning to rain.
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District employment increases modestly in May
06/18/2012
Payroll employment 6th district 1/11-5/11
The Sixth District as a whole added 9,000 jobs in May, following 9,600 new payrolls in April, and 18,900 in March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Alabama, Florida, and Georgia recorded payrolls increases while Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee reported payroll decreases. Georgia was primarily responsible for the net positive District increase.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 3, 2012
More exciting news in cancer treatment!
One of the perplexing things about cancer treatment (chemotherapeutics) is that the substances used to kill the tumors are poisonous… even deadly toxic. It has been, in essence, a shotgun approach. That is, while the malignant cells targeted for destruction are killed, so are other, non-cancerous cells throughout the body. It is an imprecise treatment because the intravenous treatment circulates throughout the entire body.
This new approach is – as the story describes – somewhat like the proverbial Trojan Horse.
Fern Saitowitz’s advanced breast cancer was controlled for about a year by the drug Herceptin and a toxic chemotherapy agent. But her hair fell out, her fingernails turned black and she was constantly fatigued.
She switched to an experimental treatment, which also consisted of Herceptin and a chemotherapy agent. Only this time, the two drugs were attached to each other, keeping the toxic agent inactive until the Herceptin carried it to the tumor. Side effects, other than temporary nausea and some muscle cramps, vanished.
“I’m able to live a normal life,” said Ms. Saitowitz, 47, a mother of two young children in Los Angeles. “I haven’t lost any of my hair.”
The experimental treatment, called T-DM1, is a harbinger of a new class of cancer drugs that may be more effective and less toxic than many existing treatments. By harnessing antibodies to deliver toxic payloads to cancer cells, while largely sparing healthy cells, the drugs are a step toward the “magic bullets” against cancer first envisioned by Paul Ehrlich, a German Nobel laureate, about 100 years ago.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, April 19, 2012
A case in point for this state which also plaguing Florida with pythons and boa constrictors… non-native species that populate and because they have no natural predators, become problems.
Alabama State officials believe that a few of the Amazonian snails were likely dumped into the pond after they had grown too large for a home aquarium. Pet stores sold the snails for years, but that practice is now illegal.
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Amazonian snails approaching Mobile-Tensaw Delta, may be here to stay
Published: Sunday, April 15, 2012, 8:03 AM
Updated: Monday, April 16, 2012, 10:44 AM By Ben Raines, Press-Register
A clump of Amazonian apple snail eggs clings to a cattail stem at the edge of Three Mile Creek. The Telegraph Road bridge is in the background, which is slightly less than a mile from the mouth of the Mobile River. Despite three years of control efforts, the snails appear to be colonizing the lower reaches of Three Mile Creek, creeping ever closer to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. (Press-Register/Ben Raines)
The Amazonian apple snails first discovered in Mobile’s Langan Park in 2008 have steadily expanded their range downstream in Three Mile Creek, ever closer to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Biologists contacted by the newspaper said the snails may be here to stay, with a breeding population already too well established to eradicate.
A Press-Register survey this week found the snail’s distinctive pink egg masses in reeds surrounding the U.S. 43 bridge on Telegraph Road, less than a mile from the Mobile River, and as close to the Delta as they’ve been found.
“The farthest I’ve seen them was the trestle at the I-165 bridge, so that’s a little farther down than normal,” said Dave Armstrong, a biologist with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. “Obviously, they’ve migrated a little farther. That’s not good news.
Armstrong said the snails remain entrenched in the pond at Langan Park despite multiple applications of copper sulfate, which is lethal to snails but not fish and other aquatic creatures. The numbers in the pond are way down from the high point two years ago, he said, but the pond remains a breeding ground.
When wildlife officials realized that baseball-sized Amazonian snails had colonized the pond, their worst-case scenario involved the giant gastropods escaping into Three Mile Creek. Biologists fear the non-native snails because they have been shown to eat 95 percent of the aquatic vegetation in some natural systems, leaving behind murky, algae-filled water.
In the fall of 2009, dozens of snails could be seen clinging to rocks in the riffles below the pond’s dam at the edge of the park. Surveys of Three Mile Creek at the time revealed Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, April 16, 2012
Thanks to “ObamaCare,” which requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of health insurance premiums on actual healthcare, instead of CEO compensation, stockholder payout, advertising, overhead, and other non-healthcare delivery, Floridians will be receiving a rebate from the money they were overcharged.
Floridians who buy health insurance without the help of an employer can expect estimated rebates of $143 to $949 in August because of the federal health care overhaul.
About 157,000 individuals and families qualify. In addition, an estimated $65 million in health insurance rebates are in line to be split among workers covered at 352,000 small businesses, the Sun Sentinel found by analyzing reports filed this month by 15 of the largest insurers in Florida.
Don’t expect cash back if you get health coverage from an employer of more than 50 workers. Few of their insurers will owe rebates, and many companies are self-insured and not affected by the health law, insurance experts said.
“This is important for consumers,” said Richard Polangin, health care policy coordinator with the advocacy organization Florida Public Interest Research Group. “They already pay extremely high prices for health insurance.”
Individuals don’t need to do a thing to obtain their money. Insurers must notify them by Aug. 1 if they are due a refund and pay that month.
I had reflected upon the thousands – literally thousands – of people I’ve seen needlessly stuffed away in Nursing Homes with no family member to love them, and the injuries and emotional insults they suffer as a result.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Naysayers, conservative political pundits and Obama “haters” of all stripe – Radical Republicans, TEA Partiers, White Supremacists, Neo Nazis, et al – have vilified and unified against already-enacted federal legislation that foremost, regulates practices by the Health Insurance industry, such as denial of coverage for children born with certain health conditions, denial of coverage for women with breast cancer, cancelling coverage in the midst of medical treatment, exorbitantly raising premium rates without actuarial justification, denying payment for covered services deemed medically necessary and rendered by qualified physicians or others, and more.
Such practices have been rightly demonized and justly described as onerous by almost everyone, even by the most staunch conservatives. So it remains a great mystery why so many are seemingly straining against what they denigrate as “ObamaCare.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, March 25, 2012
Having been working on the idea for this entry for several weeks now, it seems that with the tragic death of young Trayvon Martin in Florida, it now seems the right time to publish it.
It’s a crying shame that nearly 150 years after our nation’s Civil War, that we are still talking about race relations.
Why do these problems exist?
Department of Justice statistics indicate that for the year 2005, approximately 10,000 Blacks were arrested for All Crimes. That same year, a little over 4,000 Whites were arrested for All Crimes.
According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2012, in the USA, Blacks comprise approximately 12.6% of the population, Whites comprise 72.4%.
The figures for population and arrest have not changed significantly since 2005.
The data would seem to suggest that Blacks are significantly more criminally inclined than Whites.
But, that’s not so.
Blacks are NOT more criminally inclined than Whites.
Ethnicity is neither a predictor nor determiner of criminal intent nor propensity toward crime. More pointedly, one’s skin color has nothing to do with crime.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, August 27, 2011
Updated October 27, 2012 – Readers should be aware there is now two years of data. The original story was published in 2011, and the three new stories added are from 2012, and show similar data – that being, that the cost of the program to mandate drug testing for all public assistance recipients in Florida – is unproductive and wasteful, and costs more in tax dollars and time wasted than it purports to save.
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Dedicated to everyone who believes that merely because some people need a helping hand that they’re automatically suspect.
The line of thinking on drug testing goes like this: A.) The exceeding majority of public assistance recipients are lazy, good-for-nothing drug abusers, so B.) Taking them off the dole will save hundreds of thousands – if not tens of millions of dollars, so C.) Make them pay up front to defend themselves against the blanket accusation, and reimburse them if they don’t “come up dirty.”
Turns out, however, that only a measly 2% of recipients have been positive. In other words, the vast and exceeding majority of public assistance recipients – 98% – are law-abiding, non-drug abusing citizens.
What does that mean for the good, hard-working, tax-paying people of Florida? Why, they’re on the hook to cough up some reimbursement money to the folks that paid up front to be tested. And at $43,200/month, that’s over $518,000/year. Not exactly chump change – especially in tough economic times.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, July 4, 2011
Tomorrow’s headlines today.
In a sure-to-be-a-hit-deal, a juror in the murder trial of Casey Anthony has signed a book deal with publishers for an undisclosed amount. Speculators have said the deal may be at least worth as much as Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 20, 2011
Does history repeat itself?
Before this article was published, I was engaged in conversation with a friend on a subject wholly unrelated to this topic. As I listened to him he remarked, “Heck, when you join the Army, if your teeth need fixing, they’ll fix ’em. If you need glasses, they’ll put glasses on you. If you need any kind of healthcare, they’ll fix you up. The reason the Army provides healthcare is because they understand they’ll get a better quality soldier.”
Interestingly, neither my friend nor his family have a military background.
By extension, I wonder… how much more productive could the American worker be if they didn’t have to be concerned about their and their family’s health and healthcare? And then, if we completely ignore “lifestyle” related health issues. i.e., those associated with smoking or obesity, there are other chronic conditions, including heart disease, hypertension, COPD, etc., that significantly adversely affect the lives of families.
Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798
Jan. 17 2011 – 9:08 pm
The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida District Court.
The pleadings, in part, read –
“The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, January 14, 2011
For the past hour or two, I have found myself relaxingas I’ve not relaxed in several days.
Here, in the Southeast, we’ve been inundated with wintry weather. Specifically, on the night of the 10th of January, parts of the South received up to a foot (12″) of powderysnow. As a matter of fact, it was recently reported that 49 of our 50 states had snow somewhere in them. That solitary exception… what state was it? Florida, of course! EvenHawaiihas snow capped peaks.
Not being familiar with snow, any forecast of snow in the South generates great skepticism, and continues to …Continue reading…
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 20, 2010
Phillip Greaves, the man whom authored and sold a “how-to” book for pedophiles has been arrested in Colorado, and extradited to Florida to face charges.
(CNN) — The man behind a controversial book considered a “how-to” guide for pedophiles was arrested in Colorado, officials in Florida said Monday.
“You cannot engage or depict children in a harmful relationship,” said Polk County, Florida, Sheriff Grady Judd as he described the Florida obscenity statute that officials used to charge Phillip Greaves with distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in harmful conduct.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, September 7, 2010
BURNING KORAN IS DEADLY WRONG
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reports that a Florida pastor is planning to burn a copy of the Koran on 9/11:
Minister Terry Jones wants to show his anger at radical Muslims by burning a copy of the Koran on September 11. He is wrong morally, and he is literally endangering innocent lives.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a Publix COVID vaccine announcement.
Warm Southern Breeze 