This is our regular feature where every day I do a quick post with the top posts/stories that I think people should read from the previous day.
1. Homophobia: Ybor City Stogie – The Floridian Offers $5,000 Reward In Gay Attack, Pam’s House Blend – First-hand account from the South Florida vigil for Simmie Williams, Blast Off! – Proposed sitcom title: “Jesus & Crist,” Change in Tallahassee – Fort Lauderdale gays slammed for “Christian bashing,” Nadine Smith – Time to Stop Hatred and Violence, Pam’s House Blend – Fort Lauderdale’s Mayor Naugle spews homo-hate on taxpayers’ dime, Son of Timatollah – Ellen DeGeneres on the Lawrence King Murder, and BeThink – Homage to Lawrence King. Teach Tolerance To Adults and Children.
2. Progressive Homeschoolers of Florida – Antiabortion bill filed in Senate: “Under an antiabortion proposal — S 2400 — set forth by Sen. Daniel Webster yesterday, women will be required to have an ultrasound before having an abortion. According to the St. Petersburg Times, the bill would also ‘require doctors to allow the woman to view the live ultrasound images unless she’s a victim of rape, incest or human trafficking. Under the bill, a woman could decline seeing the ultrasound image by signing a form.’”
3. The Creationism Bill: Florida Citizens for Science – “Academic Freedom Act†filed, Flablog – Creationism bill, Florida Citizens for Science – Creationism bill roundup, Florida Citizens for Science – It’s time to move on, Blast Off! – Florida’s fundies take their creation fight to the Legislature, Florida Citizens for Science – Drama, drama, drama, and Progressive Homeschoolers of Florida – Storms files “Academic Freedom Act.”
4. Blast Off! – Confederate license plate revenue would fund hate group: “I’ve no idea if Frank Cerabino at the Palm Beach Post or anyone in the mainstream corporate media even knows this, but as Xan pointed out in a comment to my earlier post on this subject, the Confederate Heritage license plate bill provides that revenue from the plate would go to the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV).”
5. Change in Tallahassee – Tallahassee Running Out Of Money: “It’s not going to be very pretty when the Florida Legislature convenes next month in the state capitol. Legislators are looking at a budget shortfall that could exceed $3.5 billion.”
6. Interstate4Jamming2 – Jessica’s Law Hurts People Not Intended For: “The Polk County School Board Tuesday fired six low-level employees that they shouldn’t have had to. The Board said they had to in order to comply with the Jessica Lunsford Act, passed by the Legislature three years ago in reaction to the terrible disappearance, sexual assult, and eventual murder of the Citrus County girl. The law prohibits people who have been convicted of certain crimes from working on school campuses with children, and there’s little lattitude school boards are given. The six who were fired Tuesday had committed criminal offenses, but 1) their crimes were not against children or sexual in any way, and 2) their crimes had been committed more than 15 years ago. The two paraprofessionals, three custodians, and a food service worker had paid their debts to society long ago, and have apparantly lived clean lives since” and Talk To Me – A Wake of Destruction: “Sometimes in my blogging journeys, I come across slap-in-the-face information that so directly challenges status-quo thinking, I feel my responsibility lies in getting the word out. George Crossley–radio host of Power to the People, WAMT-AM Orlando–obviously feels the same way. The activist challenged his listening audiences this weekend by asking one oxymoron of a question. Is the Jessica Lunsford Act–passed to protect children–actually harming children?”
7. Tallahassee Leaders Forum – Water Wars: “Today, March 2, there is not one major Florida paper covering the water battle between Florida, Alabama and Georgia as their lead story. Every major Georgia paper had some mention of the water shortage on the front page. Yesterday, it was announced that talks between the three states have ceased and that the federal court will be taking it from here.”
8. Incertus (Amy) – Tax v. Service, 2008: “Tax v. Service is the eternal debate, and rightly so: no one likes to be taxed, and no one likes to live in a banana republic. In a living system, ‘balance’ is either a myth or a pollyanna way of looking at gridlock-like competition, which is what we have in the world of what to tax and what to buy. So there can be no ‘balance,’ not really. Forever shall the battle rage.”
9. Repeat of the Democratic Primary?: Ybor City Stogie – Gov. Crist Supports A Repeat Of The Democratic Primary, MyDD – Are We In For FL & MI Re-votes?, Pam’s House Blend – Florida: Gov. Crist would support another Dem primary, and Pensito Review – Crist’s Sneaky Motivation for Another Florida Primary.
10. Grassroots Brevard – How Democrats Won HD-32: “On Tuesday, Democrats scored an impressive, though narrow, victory in a deep red State House district. Former Cocoa Beach Commissioner Tony Sasso triumphed over Republican rival Sean Campbell despite being outspent 3:1 (if you include contributions from the Republican Party).”
11. FLA Politics (Progressive Florida) – The Florida House Map: “There was some discussion over at FPC over the latest Democratic victory in the special election in the 32nd district. This makes it nine seats we’ve gained since the November 2006 elections, a really amazing accomplishment considering where we stood before. Now the Republicans are down to a 77-41 advantage (with two Democratic-leaning open seats) and Democrats will certainly continue to chip away at these numbers in November of this year. However I made this comment on the post that we should express some caution since most of these victories have been in Democratic-leaning districts and I wanted to go into my math.”
12. Talk To Me – Foleyed: “When former U.S. Rep Mark Foley crashed and burned a couple of years back, the GOP was quick to call up pinch hitter Joe Negron from the minor leagues. The Florida state rep had maybe one month to campaign for CD-16, but that wasn’t the worst of it. His name wasn’t even on the ballot. To vote for Negron, voters had to hold their nose and pull a lever for the Republican candidate listed–Mark Foley. A vote for Foley was a vote for Negron. I learned right then and there. It’s not about the person seeking the seat. It’s all about securing the seat.”
13. Betty Cracker – Reportage for Retards: “And the political coverage, sweet weeping Jesus with the squirts strapped to the roof of the Straight Talk Express, does the political coverage ever fricking suck. Out loud. With gratuitous, nasty slurping sounds. As the estimable Kevin of RumpRoast points out, no matter which Dem wins the nomination, we progressives are not only going to have to contend with the right-wing slime machine, we’ll have to overcome the press corps’ slobbering devotion to the presumptive GOP nominee.”
14. Morning Martini – Sad Economic Indicators: “We were out running errands Saturday and also stopped by the salon so that I could get my hair trimmed. I had an appointment and when I walked into the salon there was only one other customer there. This time of year, down here in Florida, that place should have been buzzing with customers. I asked the cosmeticians who work there, what was going on? Why so few patrons? The told me that due to the economy, a lot of people were putting the cost of going to a salon on their luxury list rather than their routine list.”
15. Mark Weaver – Mark Weaver Show Recap: “Startling revelations from our talk with Jim Tait, Executive Director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy. Bottom line is the corporate grip on Florida politics is total. Corporate clones financing their campaigns with corporate money control both houses of the legislature by large margins. The House and Senate leaders and Crist have appointed all of the members, many of them from Jeb’s administration, of the Tax Reform and Budget Commission. Forces in the legislature and many Commission members are now pushing a radical state and local revenue cap towards the November ballot that will codify Jeb’s multi billion dollar tax breaks for the wealthy, permanently, and strangle the state’s revenue generation ability. The ballot campaign will be funded with corporate money. This is going to be an epic battle.”
16. The Seminole Democrat – Congrats Sasso!: “If a Dem can win a heavily GOP-gerrymanderded district, then this is a good sign for Democrats to come in November. It was close (obviously) but the good people of FL-32made the correct and obvious choice.”
17. Draft Joe Garcia – Joe gets help from DCCC on responding to Republican dirty tactics: “After the instances in the 2004 presidential campaign we all know how important it is to respond to the false attacks coming from the Republicans in a quick manner. We have already seen some of these tactics used in the race and there is no doubt we’ll see more. In fact this Freedom’s Watch group, founded by the same people who funded the Swift Boat effort on John Kerry, have said they want to raise $300 million to air false ads against our congressional candidates.”
18. Draft Joe Garcia – Democracy for America Endorses Joe Garcia.
19. Smashed Frog – 2008 Year of the Frog!: “Although you come face to face with this Frog everyday, I bet you didn’t know that today kicks off the Year of the Frog. February 29th–Leap Day. (Get it?) Zoos and aquariums all over the world will join in celebration and education regarding the frogs that remain unsmashed, yet threatened, by guess who. Us. The effort casts light on the plight of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and worm-like caecilians, an amphibian order found mostly in the tropics.”
20. Benjamin Kirby – Free Political Talking Points: The Black History Month Edition: “Black History Month is nearly over, and I hope you did something worthwhile to recognize the many contributions to our society made by African Americans today and throughout history.”
21. Here are the sites in our Candidate Watch Network that have been updated: GusWatch, and Florida Senate Watch.
22. Also check out CG Radio, the Free World Network including Situation Awareness and Mark Lane’s latest podcast.
23. For more, as always, go to the FLA Politics daily round-up and Political Newsclippings from The Spencerian.
