Congressman, what color of conservatism is your pork?

Last night at the forum held by the kendall ass. of home owners; quite a few candidates were either there or running.

This included a number of community councilpeople election candidates and a flurry of judges.

But the primary reason alot of people showed in the meeting was the forum held for the congressional seat encompassing most of the area.

Micheal Calderin( website) is a fresh face with the daunting task of opposing a well-connected emcumbent in the form of Congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart.

During a strange session of claiming to be working hard at reducing items from the budget, but also 'delivering goods for south florida'...it seemed, at best, a message tailored for those only listening for their personal pet issues. I wondered what type of conservatism brags about reducing spending and delivering pork in the same sentence.

Micheal gave a good accounting and came out with strong statements to the cheers of the crowd. A small personal history with outline of goals when elected. Mr. Diaz-Balart seemed dismissive of the crowd's mood at first...including a halfhearted attempt at calling the estate tax the 'death' tax. He was yelled at by more then a few members of the crowd at this poor ploy at word games.

Later during the question period, was thoroughly pounded by nearly every question. More laughter ensued by at the answers that seemed cloned from the RNC playbook. At the mention of 2005 job growth being the best ever year, one young man muttered "go walmart!"...to the laughter of the crowd as Mario sat down.

Considering that this was a 'seasoned' politician against a first timer in the political arena, it was amazing to see the weakness in the republican hold on these seats...the more they appear...the weaker they will appear.

Micheal needs our support however to continue his bid for the seat effectively, please visit his website and see what you can do to help!

Suffice to say that the myth invulnerability of Diaz-balart family has been laid bare.

Good Morning, Miami-Dade!

Today we have our candidate for Florida's 25th district debating the incumbent in a forum setting:

WHO: Democratic Congressional Candidate Michael Calderin and incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart

WHEN: Monday, August 28th @ 7pm...Get there early to get a seat!

WHERE: Kendall Village Center - 8625 SW 124th Avenue on Kendall Drive, just west of the Turnpike (behind Bahama Breeze).

I will be there myself(handsome face and all...) and blog about the event tonight afterwards!
Come and support Micheal tonight, if you can!


We have also received some responses from a few judge candidates.

First is Rima Bardawil running for Circuit Court Judge(#82) .

I believe that my strong academic background coupled with my strong
work ethic and active work experience as a civil litigator and appellate
attorney make me qualified. Specifically, I have been a very active
and successful civil litigator personally handling all aspects of civil
cases, trials, and all aspects of appellate work as well. In addition,
I have contributed a tremendous amount of my work time to pro bono
work to help those that would be improperly denied just access to the
courts. That same desire to give equality and respect to all regardless
of race, gender, religion, or financial ability will continue to be
integral to me in my administration of justice if/when elected to the
bench. . I am also a person of very high integrity and fairness. I hope
to be able to bring some of the integrity and fairness back that seems
to be slipping from certain areas of the judiciary. Moreover, believe
that my stellar academic background distinguishes me from the other
candidates in my race. That same high level of achievement I have brought
to the practice of law, I would be so proud and excited to bring with
me as a Judge.

LAW SCHOOL :

*- Valedictorian of St. Thomas School of Law Class of 1997 (First in
Class)
*- High Honors
*- West Outstanding Scholastic Achievement Award
*- St. Thomas Academic Scholarship
*- Dean's List
*- Law Review
*- International Moot Court
*- ATLA (American Trial Lawyers Association)

*- Book Awards (Top Grade) in the Following Classes: Advanced Legal
Research and Writing, Constitutional Law, Corporations, Employment
Discrimination, Family Law, Federal Courts, First Amendment Law, Intellectual
Property, Labor Law, Property II, and Sixth Amendment Law

*- Ranked First for Moot Court Oral Argument in Appellate Advocacy
*- Ranked “Great all Around” in Trial Advocacy Program
*- First Place Winner of the American Trial Lawyers Competition
*-Saint Thomas Appointed Academic Tutor
*- Appointed Honorary Member of Peter T. Fay American Inns of Court



Additional:

Finally, I hope to bring more equality to the courts for all those that
come before me. I hope to set a standard of the high level of quality
that should be found in judges. I hope to be able to bring some of
the integrity back that seems to be slipping from certain areas of the
judiciary. I also hope to start in the areas of juvenile, delinquency
and the dependency courts so that I can make an impact on young children
who need guidance and could have a chance at turning their lives around
and become positive members of society (as I mentor many children to
do better in school).

I also hope to advance to the appellate courts and maybe to the Florida
Supreme Court or higher where I can be instrumental in ensuring that
the law treats ALL with dignity, equality and respect.

I am proud to tell you all that I received the following Endorsements:


*The Miami Herald, *National
Women’s Political Caucus of Miami

*The Fraternal Order of Police *Wilke D. Ferguson
Bar Association

*AFL-CIO
*Concerned Citizens of North East Dade

*SAVE DADE *AFSCME

Again, we do not support or endorse any candidate for the judge races, we simply try and provide a little more information on the relevant backgrounds of the candidates to our readers. Over the next few days i will publish more responses as i receive them.

Early voting polls now open.

Hello everyone!

Today begins the early voting process.
And as democrats; you have several choices to makes for the primaries.

First, you have two candidates for governor:

The first is federal congressman Jim Davis.
To visit Mr. Davis's website click here

The second is Florida state senator Rod Smith.

To visit Mr. Smith's website click here

We are tremendously lucky to have two fantastic candidates with real differences to choose from, our opposition has a contest on which candidate resembles the current governor. "I have his eyes" or "I have his hair"...good Lord, save us the show! We need to come together quickly and strongly after this primary and provide the winner with our full support.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the attorney general we also have two candidates.

First is a Florida state senator Walter "Skip" Campbell.
His website is here

The second is attorney Merrilee Ehrlich. My appology, but there is further website I can direct you to.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perhaps it is not appropiate for us to comment on the Villalobas/Bolanos, but i will say that this is one of the most important things to watch even as a democrat. This is because this is direction that the Florida republican congress will take and how it effects our chance of coming to solutions across the party divide in Tallahassee.


We have many non-partisan circuit and county judge's races as well. Additionally; the include three brand new seats in the circuit judges racces. I am trying to send out a basic questionaire of five or six broad questions that they can answer. The rules of information are very strict to maintain the non-partisanship of the races.

However; I feel that the democratic voters should be able to know the judges alittle more closely regardless of the nature of the candidates.
*Note that the results and answers that I repost here DO NOT mean indorsement by either the Democratic party of Miami-Dade or this blog that represents it.

myth of party 'fringe' groups.

In today's feeling of accusing everyone of being a 'fringe' group, lets talk about this news-dump on us.

Personally; I feel this accusation is usually lobbed by popular or known candidates against less popular opponents.

If a incumbent is challenged by the same party or a opposing party they do this strange dance of first trying to see the pularity of the state voters, then pretend their record is not their own and really they were serving ____ interests.

The blank is the needed group to appease. This could be conservative anti-choice voters, liberal public works voters, centrist wallflower sorts that are the definition of current public opinion...whatever.

Now our incumbent response is 'My opponent is making sweet legislative love to hillary clinton, he's a liberal traitor! A Extremist!'.
Particularly relevant as a ongoing campaign tactic as we see that in the Jeb Bush-backed challenge to incumbent Villalobos's race. When it comes to smearing...no one seems to have less scrupels then the Bush clan.

But is that true? Is this senior member of florida's congress a 'weak-kneed' liberal lover?

It is amazing the depths someone will go to destroy a state. Jeb is on track to to abolish the smaller class size minimum and support for the school system finicially. As Jeb is planning to retire to elite and private Fisher Island, and his children are already through the school system(though their success is questionible). I am sure that he has alot of vested interest in florida's school system succeeding.

Or not.

Villallobos actually has to talk to people whose children go to public school. He most likely wants to stay in the area himself after his stint n politics. In other words, he has to face to the people he represents and not run to texas or exclusive properties that require ferry travel to reach.

And for this single opposition alone he is being crucified.

The brothers Bush seems to have a problem with people not obeying them instantly. It seems to their eyes, we are all certain 'fringe' groups of extremists. We are either radical right that is out of touch or non-religious or liberal destroyers of america.

Gee, i just thought we were the guys and gals that paid your salary and live in the state you happened to cherry pick and bully into.

I am not a 'fringe' element in society and neither is anyone else. This is still a democracy and every view point can be allowed...and if enough support; validated through voting.

I do not like tyrants and autocrats...those of you being of cuban or haitian herritage; you just might resent this sort of propaganda and belittlement.

America has many wonderful qualities.
Topping the list is resisting monarchies(english or otherwise) by whatever means availible. Its been past time to show people that these 'fringe' groups are nothing more then regular people trying to resist powers greater then themselves. Its time to put a democrat to lead florida's future.

*inserting campaign and newslinks at later date*

Sorry, no room for you. You are poor.

Miami-Dade is under going a dirty secret the county has ignored for too long:

Housing is not for you if you make under a certain amount.


Why does this matter to you if college kids, seniors and the working poor have nowhere to go?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

It doesnt matter if you already have a home, company pays your rent or you live with a spouse or partner.
I have often wondered why county manager Burgess has retained his job even a somewhat less then stirling preformance in the last mayor's proformance.
It would seem counter-growth to Miami-Dade's future that their is no current protection in terms of lower-income housing for the county. Exactly where are the people that clean our city, serve our food, and sell us our essentials supposed to live?

Oh right, they are supposed to live in conditions worse then prisons in county jail and smile about it.

We as the democratic party have a moral responsibility to the least members of our society.

We are the political descendants of FDR and Kennedy/Johnson. And our local focus away from affordible housing is a slap to the face of that legacy. We can point fingers and blame the republicans siting in key points of public office(partly because of our county's backward constitutional declaration of non-partisan races in the county), but that remains our responsiblity to maintain pressure on local government once elected and not just talk during the campaigns. It remains the duty of those with the ability to influence our elected government to speak for both the justice in protecting those without the ability to be heard AND the future economic viability of our county.

Especially Miami-Dade which is the soft-landing point for so many new Americans from the Carribean along with Latin and Central America. What is it that we are saying to them? The county has changed alot from the place alot of us or parents came to even as late as eight years ago. We are more congested, things are more expensive and the schools are worse then that time. Frankly; if i knew better and was imigrating to this country, i would go elsewhere right now because of the reasons listed. But mostly, its because i would know that i could forget home ownership(in the seval hundreds of thousands of dollars starting) and live on the hope that the least of the most basic living rentals is on the top edge of my ability to pay based on minimum wage.

America is still the land of promise.

I refuse to give into the thinking that it is no longer that way. I refuse to live in a county and country that now makes that same belief somehow antiquated and somehow archaic. I do live in a county that produces a economy that topples thirteen other states in the union.

Do you live in the county that can manage its own planning effectively?

Or are we just a plot of land that is for the profit of land developers to have a their fire sales on expensive homes, leave us to the consequences of block-busting nieghborhoods.

Shooting women and laughing at it...another fine FTAA moment

This article today appears is shocking. I remember the FTAA police state well, the current mayor of Miami-Dade is responsible for the injuries of many innocents. They hurt women, union workers, teenagers...

And all to defend the corrupted policies of this president's adminstration...selling out american workers and rewarding multinational Corps.

including this woman:


This is a coral gables attorney, her name is Elizabeth Ritter. She went to the protest in a red business suit and had a sign. Does she look like a threat to you?

You can witness the video in which they laugh about the tapes and the injured woman. She was shot 5 times with rubber bullets and once in the head.

One man says during the video "Did I get a piece of her red dress?"

This is the Miami-Dade Mayor's office: (305)-375-5071
This is the Broward Sheriff's office: (954) 831-8900

The senior officers from BSO have had no disciplinary actions taken.

The Mayor was the senior most officer in charge of the incident that day, in the end he was responsible for the actions of his officers. He avoided much attention for this during the political campaign on this issue, his re-election is in 2008...remind the office of that fact.

Along the same lines as the last post...Allies?

I have to report the harm in several groups to our cause of bringing about a strong Democratic county in Miami-Dade. While we gather steam and begin to fight the good fight, it seems that several 'pro-democrat' groups would want nothing more then to sink our efforts just as they begin to look successful.

Some groups that can be helpful to the cause of progressive democrats everywhere are easy spotte, such as Democracy For America and New Democratic Network.

Others warrant strong attention to influence and involvement. The DLC is one such group that could meddle when the time comes Florida to return to a Blue state status and continue our personal challenge within Dade county to the federal representatives.

Tabbi is a political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. In recent article; a top level spokesman said some very disturbing things about the nature of the democratic party and the ability of everyday people to 'dare' influence political candidates.

This is a portion of the recent article found here .

Marshall is the president of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute and owns the distinction of being the first public figure to use the term "body count" in a positive sense with regard to the Iraq war ("Coalition forces still face daily attacks but the body count tilts massively in their favor"). He wasted no time in giving me the party line: "What we're seeing is an ideological purge," he said cheerily. "It's national effort by the left to get rid of somebody they've decided to demonize . . . we have concerns about narrow dogmatism. . ."

We went back and forth for a while. I noted that his conception of "narrow dogmatists" included the readers of Daily Kos, a website with something like 440,000 visitors a day; I also noted that recent Gallup polls showed that fully 91 percent of Democrats supported a withdrawal of some kind from Iraq.

"So these hundreds of thousands of Democrats who are against the war are narrow dogmatists," I said, "and. . . how many people are there in your office? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?"

"Well, it'd probably be in the thirty zone," sighed Marshall.

I asked Marshall if there was a publicly available list of donors to the DLC.

"Uh, I don't know," he said. "I'd have to refer you to the press office for that. They can help you there . . ." (Note: a DLC spokeswoman would later tell me the DLC has a policy of "no public disclosure," although she did say the group is funded in half by corporate donations, in half by individuals).

"So let me get this straight," I said. "We have thirty corporate-funded spokesmen telling hundreds of thousands of actual voters that they're narrow dogmatists?"

He paused and sighed, clearly exasperated. "Look," he said. "Everybody in politics draws money from the same basic sources. It's the same pool of companies and wealthy individuals . . ."

"Okay," I said. "So basically in this dispute over Lieberman, we have people on one side, and companies on the other? Would it be correct to say that?" I asked.

"Well, I guess if you live in a cartoon world you could say that," he said.

I feel its important to discuss who helps our efforts as a party for the county and what do they gain from it. We have the oil rigs set to go to work off our precious and vital coast soon for large corporate interests. Do they live here or do we?

And whose party is this?

It is our party. Its far past time to take by horns and steer it clear of these sorts of forces.

Democratic neutrality.

several races are in contention for primary battles.

Two races in particular is our Governor's seat and the well-publizied senatorial race in Connecticut. As characters; lamont/lieberman is very different cast the Davis/Smith.

First; their are few pundits that to sound so belicose in our home state about the contest.
No one is saying 'this is for the soul of Democratic Party' or any such nonsense. I havent decided whether that bodes ill for the party, either candiate or both could use more media exposure before the primary and definately as a prelude to the general election. The other party is gaining important pressheading from the primary battle between the two strongest candiates. This is not something to be over-looked as a advantage.

Second; niether of our candidates is a being endorsed by the GOP's talking heads like Hannity or Glen Beck. Niether candidate plans a 'independant' run due to some sort of entitlement to position.
While i understand the nuetrality stance by the party officials as needed for the decorum in races such as Mr. Davis/Mr. Smith...it has bothered me that the obvious ploy of incunbent support(and perhaps further) has been used with such blinders to the true intention of the candidate after the party registered voters have spoken. It makes a mockery of the process and a cheapening of the Democratic officials going to campaign for a person willing to turn against the party wholly simply to keep a seat of power. For the record, both candiates for our general election spot have said that they will support the other. Florida may not be 'blue' or 'genteel' enough for the washington d.c. crowd's tastes...but with examples like the one in Connecticut, really who needs a that sort of binding that allows such gross display betrayal to take place?


*I will edit statements made by the two races as examples a little later on the day.

Fidel hands power over to Raul

I know that the majority of cuban exiles and their families are elated at the News.

I think this might be a bit premature to sound the annoucement as the fall of communisim in Cuba. What I believe the issue should be is to wait for third-party news services to confirm anything before jumping to conclusion.

If indeed this is a chance to liberate Cuba from this totalitarian regime, we need to seek a expansion of true democracy into a very turbalent time to come. This is not taking into account the ammount of powerful, if not well known, people still alive in the upper levels and holding the vast powers of cuban government machinery and its aging(yet still significant in many ways) military.

Please feel free to sound-off thoughts!

First post: some ground rules

Hello and welcome to the Miami Dade Democratic Executive Commitee's official blogspot...

(breathes)

Now thats a wordy title, no?

I just want to set some ground rules to responses and content here.

1.) We will not tolerate cuss language or bar room talk.
We want to present a place that is as confortible to each reader as it would be to those readers children and parents. Passion is needed must for political discussion, but so is civility towards each other.
2.) We will discuss issues concerning Miami-Dade county, they take presidence over national issues.
In essence; Miami-Dade issues first before the state and then national issues. This is our home, our family, our businesses, and our pride. While many people are elected in a non-partisan manner, all local politicians can be held to account for our Democratic party's ideals and hopes for the county.
3.) Trolling is the diliberate act of degrading the conversation and picking fights pointlessly.
We will be deciding which posters need warnings and which need to be removed. This is not a issue of free speech, its is a issue of respect.
4.) Regular weekly features will be revealed shortly.
Be pacient with our staff, we are trying to do the best we can. We welcome feedback and commentary. All such comments will be taken into account and your opinions will not be ignored.

Thank you and enjoy!