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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Want to help the Everglades? 


http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/oct/27/charles-de-garmo-re-create-real-river-of-grass/  Written by Charles de Garmo:
“Well, state Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, jumped into the deep end again. First it was ending fishing license fees, thus devastating Florida's fishing infrastructure. Now he wants to take water management away from the gang responsible for almost every major man-made disaster in the United States since 1802, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Then he would have us give the responsibility to the "Don't Expect Protection" group (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) and its partners in crimes against nature, the South Florida Water Management District. That's the group who (among other projects) wasted an estimated $355 million on Ten Mile Creek and the STA-1 reservoir and who hasn't completed one Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan project properly since its approval in 2000.
Next Joe would like to put them under the guidance of an elected official so someone would be accountable. Why aren't the current elected officials holding anyone accountable now? I would feel better if we just called the cast of Jersey Shore; I hear they're looking for jobs these days.
I strongly agree with Joe that we have to think outside the box to stop the too-frequent flooding of the St. Lucie River with water more polluted than water in a Third-World country's drainage ditch. But even if the sugar industry agreed tomorrow to give up all the land needed to build a river of grass and all the retention cleansing ponds needed, they couldn't be built without solving a few other problems:
1) The Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, which nests on the ground in clumps of grass, is federally protected.
2) Congress passed a phosphate rule that mandates that no water can go south with more than 10 parts per billion of phosphates. This is the most restrictive item.
3) The endangered kite snail lives in the Everglades.
4) Public outrage and awareness must increase.
It was made abundantly clear by Big Sugar's David Goodlett when he recently spoke to an audience at the Rivers Coalition (who sat in shock as though they were witnessing the docking of the Hindenburg) that the sugar industry thinks what it is doing is enough and it doesn't care about the river. The only thing that will change that position is the ending of farm subsidies and their guarantee of 18 cents a pound for sugar.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. One trillion dollars and 41 years later it has been a colossal failure. Drug use should be treated as a health problem, not a criminal problem, but it feeds too many cottage industries and keeps 2.5 million people incarcerated. The war on drugs should be declared over and drugs should be managed and taxed just like alcohol and tobacco.
So, let's think out of the box. When farm subsidies are gone, marijuana is legalized and there is hopefully something left to save of the estuary and Everglades. Representatives of all the players could sit down with the "Sultans of Sugar" and tell them they will be licensed to grow marijuana but here are the conditions: 1) No federal or state subsidies. 2) You must donate all of the land we need to build the river of grass and the needed retention ponds. 3) You can use nothing but compost as fertilizer. 4) You can only sell your product as alcohol and tobacco is sold and regulated.
The Florida Department of Agriculture wants the taxpayers to spend $5 million on a program to teach best management practices for pollution control to the ranchers and farmers around Lake Okeechobee — I kid you not. For $1 million I'll tell them that it's either houses, sugar, vegetables, cattle or marijuana. Florida already leads the nation in illegally grown indoor marijuana and it would pollute the least. Sadly, nothing will change and none of us will ever live long enough to see the destruction stop unless something major changes with the money and politics.”
Charles de Garmo of Sewall's Point is a graduate of Quinnipiac (Conn.) University and has a Coast Guard master's license.
© 2012 TCPalm. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

posted by news2notice  # 6:47 AM

Friday, October 26, 2012

Faith 

Marshall Frank says: “the holocaust brought on by the “believers” (Islamists) twenty or thirty years from now will make Hitler look like an angel of mercy.” How could Hitler ever be perceived as an “angel of mercy”? And it was Christians who accused the Jews of killing Christ, for how many centuries, confining them to ghettos, making laws prohibiting them from doing many kinds of labor. The PBS documentary of Jesse Owens, and “the Goebbels’ Diaries” on DVD at the library, show screaming, enthusiastic mobs of white people, mostly “Christian”. Look closely, too, at those herding the Jews into those boxcars. Those are not Muslim faces. The Saudis, Kuwaitis, Bahrainians, etc., have practiced Sharia law even as U.S corporations kowtowed to them, to make money off their oil. Pres.H.W. Bush, with Dick Cheney as his Defense secretary, bombed the secular country of Iraq, where people of all faiths lived in peace, and then his son did it again. So now Iraq is Shiite dominated, thanks to us. Barack Obama acts like a Christian, and seems to have faith in the essential goodness of human beings, as Anne Frank said. Marshall has NO Faith, that allows him to walk thru the Valley of Death, but to fear not. Hitler preached Fear too, and blamed everything on the Jews. Where’s his call to boycott oil from any country that practices Sharia law, as they boycotted us after the Yom Kippur war?

posted by news2notice  # 6:02 AM

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Another Republican Solyndra 


http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/oct/23/martin-county-commission-approves-900000-subsidy-e/
Another FL Republican Solyndra?  What was John Textor’s total take-$135 million, with $20 Million coming from state Republicans?  Doesn’t Piper Aircraft still have $8 Million State of Florida $$, even though a Muslim Monarchy now owns them?  Now Martin County, and FL state Repubs want to hand out $4,870,000 to this Turbocumbustor company that is owned by a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group?

“(The bin Laden family) is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies.” wrote Daniel Golden, James Bandler, and Marcus Walker, in the Wall Street Journal, Europe, on 9/28/2001, not long after 9/11.  http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/global-texte/g-notes/BinLaden-Carlyle.htm
Wikipedia has more recent info: “In September 2007, Mubadala Development Company, an investment vehicle for the government of Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates, purchased a 7.5% stake (in the Carlyle Group) for $1.35 billion.”  

Did you see the other rich Qatar Sheik in the paper today, giving money to wipe out secularism in Palestine?  We’ve already destroyed the only secular country in the Mideast, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  Now our taxpayer dollars are going to free up Muslim $$ for them to invest in schools, libraries, hospitals, etc., that Republicans claim we cannot afford for Americans?  

Martin County closed the Blake Library on Sundays, and made all the branch libraries close one day a week-no money, they said.  But they give $625,000 a year to the Economic Development Bureaucracy.  Gov. Scott too, says a train is too expensive, matching federal money for Medicaid to keep the disabled and elderly in their homes is too expensive, but hand outs to Muslim-invested businesses are just fine.



posted by news2notice  # 12:40 AM

Sunday, October 21, 2012

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/terror.htm

October 23, 1983, 241 Marines, mostly from Camp LeJeune, in North Carolina, were killed by a truck carrying 6 Tons of TNT, driven by a suicide bomber.  

President Reagan called it "a despicable act",  but simply pulled all our troops out of Lebanon, the following spring.

posted by news2notice  # 2:03 PM

Friday, October 19, 2012

$12.1 million to get Rep. Allen West elected 

Excerpted from George Bennett's article, Palm Beach Post, reprinted in The Stuart News: 10-18-2012

"(Our Congressional) District 18 is one of the costliest in the nation, with Allen West spending $12.1 Million through September 30, and Patrick Murphy spending $2.9 million."

"A super PAC named The Treasure Coast Jobs Coalition was formed in July and started running ads in September slamming Allen West's Democratic Challenger,  Patrick Murphy."

"The PAC's first report...shows Mutual Pharmacy Co. senior adviser Richard Roberts contributed $1Million on Sept. 2.  The PAC got only $81,000 in other contributions."

"Roberts was chairman and CEO of URL Pharmaceuticals, also known as Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., until the company was sold to Japanese firm Takeda, in June, for $800 Million..."

When the Republican Majority did Medicare Part D in 2001,  bargaining for better prices with pharmaceutical companies, was FORBIDDEN.  It still is, because Republicans refuse to let Medicare negotiate for better deals, as our own VA has always done, as Canada does, and as every European country with "socialized" medicine does.





posted by news2notice  # 7:10 PM

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Ways around Campaign spending Limit-Florida 

All the below, excerpted from Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel, (smaxwell@tribune.com, telephone: 407-420-6141, reprinted in "The Stuart News, 6-21-12

"Recently, (in Florida), the Orlando Sentinel highlighted a fight where a single software company, (one trying to kill a specific bill) dumped millions of $$ into accounts controlled by state leaders.

We're talking $600,000 for House Speaker Dean Cannon.  Another $400,000 for Senate President Mike Haridopolos.  A solid $1Million for Gov. Rick Scott.

All this in a state where politicians look you earnestly in the eye and tell your campaign donations
are capped at $500.00

It is unmitigated malarkey.

State leaders have rigged the system with more back doors than a carnival fun house....

...the politicians can set up committees to accept unlimited donations.

A company seeking legislative favors can give $25,000 to a legislator's 'leadership fund' or
'committee for continuous existence'.  And the legislator can then spend that money on everything
from plane tickets to donations to other candidates.

It happens all the time.  Just last month, for instance, Disney World gave $25,000 to committees controlled by 2 aspiring top legislative leaders, Sen. Andy Gardiner and Rep. Chris Dorworth."

"...In Dorworth's case, (he has spent on) everything from $526 at a 5-star hotel to more than $300,000 on 'consulting services'-all to promote 'economic growth in FL.

Really, though, $25,000 is just the tip of the iceberg.  Some companies and industries cut multiple checks for $100,000.00."

Summarizing the rest:  To show just how out-of-hand things have gotten, in 2004, the most successful "committee for continuous existence" fundraiser collected $131,000.

"6 years later, Dean Cannon raised twice that much money in a single day"

"By year's end, Cannon's Florida Liberty Fund collected nearly $3million".

"8 years ago, Gov. Jeb Bush pushed for some reform through better disclosure.

But he and legislative leaders stopped short of what was truly needed-limits on massive checks
that are simply campaign donations under a (barely) different name.




posted by news2notice  # 12:31 PM

Monday, October 01, 2012

St. Lucie River, FLORIDA 

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/sep/30/eve-samples-we-all-pay-for-sugar-price-supports/ “...sugar industry lobbyist David Goodlett (of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida)…(said) ‘We don't get a subsidy,’ of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida” “Yes, it's technically true that the federal government does not refer to its support of sugar farmers as a "subsidy." However, Goodlett sugarcoated the fact the federal government props up the price of the commodity through the Farm Bill. Call it a subsidy or call it a price support. Ultimately, the effect on everyday people is the same: We pay more... the Coalition for Sugar Reform, a group that includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the libertarian-leaning Club for Growth and beverage and candy-makers. ‘Put in place to support American sugar farmers by keeping their prices artificially high, the U.S. sugar program has proven counterproductive in today's global economy,’ the Coalition for Sugar reform stated in a news release in August. The coalition estimates sugar price supports and production quotas cost consumers $3.5 billion a year.” Eve Samples continued: “Inflated sugar prices prop up the value of land south of Lake Okeechobee — land essential to restoring the southward flow of water to the Everglades.” "’We, the population, want waters to go south — and you guys are essentially the main barriers preventing that,’ Martin County Commissioner Ed Fielding said.” “As they debated, almost 600 million gallons of water per day were pouring out of the St. Lucie Lock & Dam — much of it from Lake Okeechobee, and some of it from local rain runoff. The freshwater deluge has offset the balance of saltwater in the St. Lucie River estuary, and the fertilizer runoff it carries is suffocating to river life. After more than a week of releases from the lake (and, before that, from the polluted St. Lucie Canal), the river looks terrible…(the larger sugar cane growers are Florida Crystals and U.S. Sugar.) Goodlett likes to point out sugar farmers have decreased phosphorous pollution over the past decade — though he conceded they ‘probably’ wouldn't have done it without pressure from regulators. ‘It's always about the bottom line, and that's what America's about,’ Goodlett...said as he faced the river advocates. ‘We don't apologize for living in a capitalistic society. We think that's what brung us all to the dance.’ He apparently didn't see the irony in accepting government price supports. An effort to strip the sugar protections from the Farm Bill failed this summer. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have stood by it. U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, says he sees such supports as a way to keep jobs and food production in the United States. (Rep. Allen West did not respond)” Eve Samples, TCPalm, 9-30-12

posted by news2notice  # 1:31 AM

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