Money in politics: Florida vying for lead in category of dubious value

Here's the Gail Collins column in the NY Times on Lebron, Ned Lamont, two of Florida's most-seen-on-TV-commercials candidates and other stuff that may be held together by Greenwich, Connecticut.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=2

Highway accidents: almost instant info

http://www.flhsmv.gov/fhp/traffic/

Select from the drop-down list of counties or from the list of FHP troops -- Troop E covers Monroe and Miami-Dade. A table with current highway problems appears, to help you decide your route.

Sent from my iPhone 3GS
Blogging at Miami-Dade-Dems.blogspot.com

Is this your doctor? In jail but "still licensed?"

The headline on this piece was a little hard to believe, but read it and see if you think it's reasonable, too.

http://www.healthnewsflorida.org/index.cfm/go/public.articleView/article/16024

Kudos to Carol Gentry for this story on Health News Florida. You, too, can subscribe and get her daily run through health news.

Redistricting amendments on the ballot: Florida voters earn historic chance to vote to stop politicians from rigging districts

After November passage voters will choose elected officials – not the other way around

Tallahassee, FL – Today, Floridians took a giant step towards ending the incumbent and political party protection plan that masquerades as legislative and Congressional redistricting. The non-partisan group FairDistrictsFlorida.org gathered more than 1,650,000 petitions signed by Florida Republicans, Democrats and Independents from the Panhandle to the Keys. As a result, today the Secretary of State certified Constitutional Amendment 5 for the November 2, 2010 ballot, and is expected to soon certify its partner, Amendment 6. Florida voters now have a powerful opportunity to stop legislators from rigging and manipulating district boundaries in order to stifle competition while perpetuating their own political power.

“These critical reforms will finally end the legalized conflict of interest that allows legislators to design their districts and those of Congress for their own political purposes,” said Bob Milligan, who was elected State Comptroller during the Lawton Chiles and Jeb Bush administrations.

Under our present system, there are no rules that limit legislators from drawing districts to favor themselves or their parties. Districts in Florida are bizarrely shaped, often meandering for hundreds of miles or from coast to coast. Communities are carved up so that voters living in the same neighborhood are often represented by different members of Congress or state representatives.

As a result, incumbent legislators almost never lose their re-election bids. Only three (out of 140 up for election each cycle) were defeated in the last six years. How could this happen? Because legislators draw up their own districts for one purpose: to ensure that they stay in office!

Former Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham said, “Florida’s legislators are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives. There are presently no rules to stop this self protection plan. And when this happens, the voters don’t have a real choice! These amendments will change that.”

With voter approval in November, Amendments 5 and 6 will establish constitutional rules that will:
Prohibit politicians from designing districts to favor themselves or their parties;
Require them to make the districts compact and community based; and
Make it impossible for legislators to draw districts to diminish the ability of minority voters to elect representatives.
“I am so happy that the voters of Florida will finally have the opportunity to vote to put these fairness standards in the Florida constitution. These amendments provide new protections for all voters and especially minorities,” added Representative Perry Thurston of Broward County.

State Representative Darren Soto, Orange County, said, “Today’s certification bodes well for achieving fair districts in the state of Florida. I think that these new protections will be very popular with my constituents as well as all of the voters of our great state.”

For additional information and the exact language of Amendments 5 and 6, please visit www.FairDistrictsFlorida.org.

A challenge to Florida Democrats from a blogger

Is this a gauntlet thrown down, or what? Over at the best local blog, Eye on Miami, gimleteye is challenging us to distinguish ourselves from the Republicans. Read it and gnash your teeth.

A sample:

If the Rubio forces have their way, the Florida Department of Community Affairs will be history in the upcoming session of the legislature. And Democrats still can't tell what is happening. They are somewhere down the other side of the field, picking dandelions while the G.O.P. has driven the ball into the corner at the other end of the field, in a corner kicking each other's shins and ankles.

I agree with the New America Foundation and its assessment that in November 2010, the ballot referendum "Florida Hometown Democracy" will be the most important in the nation. It is a measure that strikes fear at the heart of the Florida G.O.P. But even on this clearest issue, Florida Democrats can't find a voice. Alex Sink, the Florida candidate for governor, won't even pick up a phone to discuss the issue. And so it goes as 2009 and a bad decade for Florida comes to a close.

There are a lot of good points. Any thoughts?

One that occurs to me is that some developers are Democrats, and they stand out by distinguishing themselves from those who get rich by over-development. If they were to take lead positions in debate on the issue of over-development, the public might decide to vote Democratic more often.

Bill Nelson hears "public option" yells

Sen. Nelson got a little heckling Friday at the Florida Democratic
Party Conference in Orlando. He said he already voted for it and on
Tuesday a bill will ome out of the Senate Finance Committee.

Keep an eye out for this guy on our golf courses

I'm talking about John Boehner, Republican leader in the US House, who asserts that he's never heard anyone he's met support the public option for health coverage. What? How can that be? Seems some of his detractors think it's only because he spends all his time playing golf in Florida.

So, keep an eye out for him. And tell him what you think.



I always wondered why he had such a tan. (Cue any number of Florida jokes now.)

Florida's grim numbers on health insurance vs pay

This word is just in from the White House:

• Average Florida family health premium growth over 10 years is 121 percent, compared to just 43 percent wage growth.
• We're nonetheless doing better than Sarah Palin's former subjects in Alaska, where health insurance premiums rose 145% and wage growth was 35% since 1999 -- worst disparity in the US.

This information comes from a speech Vice President Joe Biden gave to a group of state insurance commissioners. Among other bad numbers: in the past year the national average annual family premium for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 – a shocking 5.5 percent increase during a recession when inflation actually fell by 0.7 percent.

Reform time, anyone?

Read the full report yourself.

Subscribe to this: Health News Florida

We are asking how to help pass good health care legislation. One way is to be better informed. Subscribe to this and you're going in the right direction:

Health News Florida

Meanwhile, your blogger has been on vacation for a week or so but hopes occasionally to post from remote locations at the end of the world. Back soon after Labor Day.

Reality check on health care myths

In case you haven't received this from elsewhere, here's the link to the White House pack of videos that try to combat the lies and misrepresentations gushing from the Rovian right.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

UPDATE: That was barely posted when another email rolled in from the White House with two more impressively detailed links to information on health care.

First, Florida! How we in Florida can benefit from getting it right:

http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/statehealthreform/Florida.html

The next link describes how we already have the hated Rationing. Let's get rid of it!

http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/denied_coverage/

I've neglected to post video of a rally last Friday at the Miami office of US Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25), so here it is. You'll note that we did some yelling but only out on the street to say we wanted the public option.

Wheels starting to turn in US House Districts 18 and 25

I think there were two developments on Tuesday in the coming races for the US House of Representatives from Miami-Dade County, involving Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo, the Democratic candidates who waged strong campaigns in 2008 but lost in FL-25 and FL-18, respectively.

I’m guessing that Joe Garcia took himself out of the House race in 2010 by accepting a nomination for a job in the Obama administration, and Annette Taddeo declared, once again, that she’s mad at the incumbent Republican, and she squashed talk that she’d run for chief financial officer of Florida.

Taddeo’s stump speech in her brave battle to unseat Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2008 always included the story of her decision to run. It was because Ros-Lehtinen had voted repeatedly against expanding children’s health insurance coverage. Taddeo would bring tears to her listeners’ eyes by recalling her many surgeries to repair a cleft lip, and she would say this experience convinced her to challenge Ros-Lehtinen, who’s been in the US House now for 20 years.

Now the issue is the environment, Taddeo said in a statement ruling out a run to succeed Alex Sink as Florida’s CFO. She didn’t declare outright for Congress, but it sure sounds like the next thing in her sights.

Here’s most of what she said:

I have taken time to seriously examine this [CFO] opportunity and to confer with family, friends and supporters. I’ve had an opportunity to do some soul searching about my future and I’ve come to some clear realizations. I am most passionate about my family, my business and public service. I’ve dedicated my entire life to family, while dedicating my professional life to building and growing my company, LanguageSpeak. Through my service on a variety of public boards and groups and then my run for Congress, I have been able to follow my passion for public service.

The Chief Financial Officer position is very appealing to me. I believe my background as the owner and active CEO of a small business gives me the skills I would need to serve the people of Florida in this position. As I examined the opportunity, I felt confident I could raise the money to be competitive and that I could do the job well and with vision.

But something was missing.

Just over a week ago, the House of Representatives passed landmark legislation to attack climate change and to address our dependence on foreign oil and the deadly greenhouse gasses that fossil fuels spew into our environment. I followed that debate with rapt attention and realize the legislation isn’t perfect. However, in spite of the science, in spite of the clear and present danger climate change presents to the future of Florida, my own member of Congress voted against the bill.

I realized at that moment what was missing as I considered the CFO race. I just wasn’t passionate about it at this time. I am passionate about climate change and health care and restoring our economy. I am passionate about economic development and job creation and making sure America is on the forefront of innovation for the future. I feel we are being let down, once again, by political leaders who can’t see beyond the next election.

Therefore, I have decided not to be a candidate for CFO or any other office at this time. I hope and believe that I will run for public office again in the near future. I have decided to keep my focus on my family, my business and to engage in public policy from the perspective of a wife, mother, business owner and activist for now. Thank You.

A month ago, at the Jefferson-Jackson Day event in Miami Beach, she said she wouldn’t run for Congress again without the full backing of the Democratic Party, as she had to do in 2008. Well we remember the thrashing and gnashing that went on as we in the grassroots begged and yelled for our incumbent Democrats in the US House, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) and Kendrick Meek (FL-17), to get behind the strong Democratic candidates challenging the three Republicans in our county’s US House delegation. It was like the poor Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the impossible mountain.

In the end, Taddeo lost 42 percent to 58 percent – the same margin that Democrat Raul Martinez lost to Lincoln Diaz-Balart in FL-21.

Joe Garcia did considerably better against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25, losing 47 percent to 53 percent.

Not long ago I heard Joe Garcia speak at a Democracy For America-Miami-Dade chapter meeting, and he clearly was leaving the door open to a new run for the US House. The demographics are getting more and more favorable for a Democrat in this district that includes Miami’s southwestern suburbs and through the Everglades to the eastern part of Collier County.

But now Garcia is taking an interesting chance in Washington, and I think this rules out a run for the US House. It’s already July of 2009, and within six months he’d had to have a campaign up for the November 2010 election. Somehow Joe Garcia doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d put the citizenry through the agony of confirmation hearings and then a few months later quit and run for some other position.

Yes, confirmation hearings – that’s what the Miami Herald says on the Naked Politics blog.
Click on that and you'll see that the White House said of Garcia:

"Joe Garcia's dynamic public service career spans over 20 years and consists of a diverse body of work in the fields of energy, foreign policy and human rights. As a law student, Mr. Garcia directed the Exodus Project, a non-profit refugee resettlement program that reunited over 10,000 families at no cost to American tax-payers. In 1992, the late Governor Lawton Chiles appointed Joe Garcia to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), where he fought for lower utility bills for the people of Florida. In 1998, Mr. Garcia's fellow commissioners elected him as chairman of the PSC. As PSC Chairman, Joe Garcia worked across party lines to pass the largest energy rate cut in Florida's history, saving Florida's families more than $1 billion. In 2001, Mr. Garcia was named as the Executive Director of the Cuban American National Foundation, where he served as a tireless proponent of freedom and improved human rights conditions in Cuba and throughout the Americas. In 2004, Mr. Garcia was named Executive Vice President and Director of the Hispanic Project for NDN, a policy research institute in Washington D.C. Joe Garcia earned his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctorate degrees from the University of Miami."

Oh, yeah. The job is director of the Office of Minority Economic Impact at the Department of Energy.

Why Floridians should be calling their reps in Washington

This link is Florida-specific. THE HEALTH CARE STATUS QUO:

You can arm yourself with facts on why we need health care reform and why Florida is deficient in providing good health care for all. At the top of the list was that you'd have to work all year full-time at minimum wage to earn enough to pay the premiums for a family health insurance plan.

Fine, the neo-cons will say: They are young and healthy and don't need health care. But what about the ones that are injured in a car wreck? The ones who get pregnant? The ones who catch swine flu? Those who need counseling for obesity, substance abuse, family abuse? Those who should get a checkup every few years to confirm that they're healthy and that their vision is sharp?

This link comes from the federal secretary of health, and it's time to be dialing your reps in Washington to demand a strong public option in the new legislation.

Florida: 9.6% unemployment

We're a hair higher than the national rate of 9.4% in Friday's report.

Click on this link to a roll-over map to show each state's jobs situation. It's on the fine ProPublica blog.

Don't miss it: Obama campaign in Listening Tour for next phase

Some time ago one of the readers of this blog asked, “What are we doing to support the president?”

I suggested joining a Democratic club or similar to get more active. Here’s what I should have said: Get yourself to Organizing for America and sign up right away!

Night before last I was one of about 15 people at an OFA gathering in Miami called Florida Listening Tour (one of many stops in). The meeting was led by Ashley Walker, who was deputy director of the Obama campaign in Florida. Most people attending had worked in the campaign, one as paid staff, others as almost full-time volunteers. One woman had moved to swing-state Florida from a solid blue state to make a difference where it would count.

If you were an Obama volunteer, you’ll be familiar with the useful website, it’s dear old my.barackobama.com, or my-bo for conversational short. Plain barackobama.com also works. Your old log-in still works. Your old blog posts are still there. But now the site has morphed from Obama for America to Organizing for America. Clever, huh. Still OFA. But now we’re in office and taking on missions to get bills through Congress.

This, of course, is not new. My-bo has been active all along since last November. The difference now seems to be that the White House and Obama machine are gearing up to be in campaign mode full-time. This will not be like winning campaigns of the past that celebrated and partied on election night and inauguration day, and then dissolved. Three years later the old phones and email addresses would be tried again and campaigners would start to meet again. Now it will never stop.

Ashley Walker said she and John Bivona are doing the listening tour for now, traveling up and down Florida and holding similar meetings in city after city, town after town, to recruit, wake up old volunteers, listen, ask questions about what’s needed to make an impact in Florida.

Two priorities:

· Organizing support for President Obama’s policy priorities

· Building and strengthening the grassroots movement by empowering people to have an impact in their own communities.

A no-brainer for the Florida impact side: help with the redistricting petition drives to end gerrymandering. Beyond that, your friendly Obama volunteer leader probably already is organizing drives to help push the Obama program on health care, energy and education.

There are about 30 more Listening Tour events on the calendar for Florida, including two in Miami-Dade County in coming weeks. Make sure you get to one.

May 21 in Coral Gables / South Miami --> http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gptgds

June 3 in Miami --> http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gptgdl

And by the way, this is gearing up in all 50 states. Expect to be asked to donate. And to make a ton of phone calls to recalcitrant members of Congress, entirely too many of whom will be Democrats.

Alex Sink announces for governor

She's the only Democrat elected statewide, Alex Sink, our Florida chief financial officer. Today she announced for the governor's office to be vacated by the upward-striving Charlie Crist, and I wish her well.

How's she going to do well? Since her business experience is in banking and that's the "industry" that joined with real estate to lead us to the edge of the cliff of financial crisis, she should lay out everything in her business background relevant to the financial crisis and explain that she's had nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with the march to the cliff.

Her notes and emails should be laid out for the public to see how she warned against irrational exuberance, against excessive leverage, against over-development.

She did, didn't she?

CALL and E-MAIL our Miami South Florida Water Management District Governing Board members Tuesday and express your support for the U.S. Sugar Purchase

----- Forwarded Message ----

From: Jonathan Ullman

Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 7:54:08 PM

Subject: Testing Time for the Everglades. Make the call and send the email.

 

Dear Everglades ally:

 

With a YES vote on Wednesday, the state of Florida will soon be holding the deed to land more than double the total mass of the City of Miami to help restore the Everglades and keep our water wells flowing with fresh water instead of salt water.

 

The purchase means we will be much closer to restoring the Everglades without having to spend tens of billions of dollars on dangerous and unreliable deep water wells. It means that we will have more land to clean up Everglades-toxic Phosphorus before it heads south. It means we’re closer to an end to fish kills in the Caloosahatchee basin and Indian River Lagoon. It means we’re closer to a day when fires won’t ravish Shark River Slough and erode the organic peat that keeps the Everglades out of the sea. It means everything is possible.

 

But if we do nothing, we will simply return to the box we’ve created, and the death of the Everglades continues.

 

I ask you to CALL and E-MAIL your South Florida Water Management District Governing Board member(s) Today and Tuesday and express your support for the U.S. Sugar Purchase. We are one vote away.  Their info is below. [Miami-Dade County SFWMD Governing Board members:]

Eric Buermann: (561) 682-6433, ebuermann@sfwmd.gov

Michael Collins: (561) 236-5304, mcollins@sfwmd.gov

Melissa Meeker: (772) 323-6468, mmeeker@sfwmd.gov

 

Sincerely,

 

Jonathan Ullman

South Florida/Everglades Senior Organizer

Sierra Club

(305) 860-9888

For more information, visit: http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/index_ussugar.php

https://my.sfwmd.gov/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/COMMON/NEWSR/ROG_APR09/jtf_rog_2009_05.pdf

Who's after our banks? "Lowlife grave dancers."

It was one of those below-the-fold stories on the front page of the NY Times about some unfathomable business thing, but the time was late and I decided to read it anyway. Despite the headline: "As Investors Circle Ailing Banks, Fed Sets Limits." And despite the dateline: "Cainsville, Mo."

Good decision. There about in the middle of the story was a note that the same business vulture was circling Florida's own BankUnited, which is in deep trouble.

Even better was to plow to the end of the story and get the kicker (we old hacks know the last lines often are the second-best thing in a long story): It quoted J. Christopher Flowers, who's desperately rich and desperate to get much richer:

He has estimated his banking empire will one day earn at least a 35 percent return on banks it has bought in the United States. “I find it to be an extraordinary time to invest,” he said.

He was even more blunt when he spoke to an industry group in New York earlier this year. “Lowlife grave dancers like me will make a fortune,” he predicted.

Suddenly, I'm dubious that this is going to turn out well for the rest of us. A few of the super-rich of the world will do great for themselves, and we will think that we're doing better as the stock markets claw back a fair amount of what they've lost, and we'll lose resolve to make our economic system work better. And in a decade or so J. Christopher Flowers and his gang of hedgers will be too big to fail but failing anyway, and there we go again.

That story was on p. 1 of Wednesday's Times. On Thursday the Times had an editorial on the same topic, urging the Obama administration and the Fed not to relax rules about who can run banks. The editorial also said:

If you’ve had a nagging feeling that the banking mess is a colossal raw deal for taxpayers, consider the suspicion confirmed.

When they're bold enough to call themselves lowlife grave dancers, I'd say, Yes, raw deal for us.

Here are some more links on this topic, some rather technical.

Source: Two main bidding groups for BankUnited - South Florida Business Journal:

Confessing here that I hadn't paid much attention to BankUnited. I note now that its shares go for about a quarter these days. There's a commenter after the SoFla Business Journal article who says, "Folks in South Florida are so asleep there has not even been a run on the bank deposits."

Next is a newswire item from March 10 when BankUnited didn't file its reports to the SEC as required, and NASDAQ said it wasn't in compliance with rules to be listed.

Now excuse me please. The secretary of the treasury has an op-ed in the Times, and I'm going to read it to stave off the nightmares that otherwise would be disturbing my rest.

Crist will face this and worse

The Democrats are getting ready for Charlie Crist to go in either direction.

Adam Putnam revealed: follow the money

This link takes you pretty far out of our county lines but in a few short months (well, next year, which is galloping up like Hurricane Wilma) you’ll be wondering who’s this Republican Adam Putnam and why’s he running for state commissioner of agriculture and consumer affairs.

Here at friedgator.com you can learn about the young Florida congressman who is quitting Congress to run for the least of the state cabinet slots. And the answer to why’s he doing it is that he’s protecting his money. His family money.

Remember that when he tells you he’s doing it for you. This is a conflict of interest big enough to drive a thousand citrus haulers through.

Next question: who’s standing up for the Democrats to run for this job?

On the road again -- Washington, here I come

On I-95, heading for DC

This apparition in the sky greeted me on I-95 not far south of the Daytona area. What the heck was it, anyway? From a distance, when I first saw it well south of this (iPhone) photo, it looked like weather, because the white cloud on the top was more visible. Then as I got closer, it looked more like smoke. Abreast of it, it was very dark smoke from a fairly concentrated fire source. Nothing to take me off the ribbon of concrete and asphalt connecting me with the Inauguration. So it remains a mystery. What the heck was it, anyway?

It’s a thoughtful time, to be driving alone for most of two days. En route to a historic event, with the radio blaring AM and FM, talk shows, music, religion, sports, a smidgeon of news now and then. Where have all the announcers gone? Long time passing. Where have all the DJs gone? Long time ago. Where have all the voices gone? Gone for software every one …

Except on NPR. There still are voices and brains there. Wonder why NPR fades away and can’t be found for a long stretch in east-central Florida. All those low FM freqs occupied by the Lord and his/her minions.

Leaving Miami-Dade, I recalled that Nicole Sandler had sent an email a few days ago about being on the radio Saturday morning, and by some miracle of memory, I correctly tuned the Mustang radio to AM 850, and there the former voice of progressive South Florida on early morning AM 940 was sitting in for Stacy Ritter, the Broward commissioner and tireless campaigner for Barack Obama. Great feat of memory, Larry, and then I decided to try to get into the conversation over what to do about all the misdeeds of the Bush (mal)Administration.

On the second try, I got through to the screener and was put on the queue. Most of the callers were for serious prosecutions of the Bush miscreants, but I had a slightly different idea in mind. It was getting closer and closer to the end of Nicole’s time, and I worried that I might be left out. But about 10 to the hour, I was on. I blurted out that I was on the way to the Inauguration, barreling up I-95, and I wanted to make a different point about the difficult decision on whether to unleash all the powers against the loyal Bushies, or whether to let them get away with vast crimes against humanity and the US Constitution.

My drift was this: I don’t know exactly what to do but I hope that Barack Obama will find a wise course, and since he seems such a wise person, there is hope. I remember what John Dean, once a loyal Nixonite, is saying these days about the spectrum of political tendencies we find in the population. Is this a conservative country? Sometimes it seems terribly conservative, but this may be a temporary phenomenon caused by the luck and skill that the conservative minority has had in winning too many elections lately – until 2006. Research shows that there’s a firm minority with authoritarian tendencies, and they may number 25-30 percent. This may be why, though Bush is clearly the worst president in a very long time, he still seldom drops below 30 percent approval. The other thing about the people in that minority of 25-30 percent is that they’re loyal to a fault, and they tend to be heavily represented in the military and the first responders – in other words, they’re important for taking care of the rest of us slackers.

So my final point to Nicole Sandler was that I hope the resolution of this issue – prosecute or let them off? – does not alienate this large minority, because we need them.

Nicole then jumped back in and started agreeing with most of my line of thought, though I didn’t hear exactly all of it, because the screener came up in my earpiece (I was hands-free-talking into the iPhone’s throat mike) and said “Thanks for calling, sir” and cut the phone connection. It took me quite a few seconds to get the earpieces out and turn up the car radio again, so I missed a lot of Nicole’s wrapup. And of course there had been a delay of a couple seconds in releasing me for broadcast in case I said one of the seven deadlies.

Anyway: Thanks, Nicole Sandler, for letting me get in the last call, and we wish you more and more gigs!

It was satisfying to get in a little broadcast punditry en route to Washington, and I mulled over in my mind what I’d left out, such as reference to the South African brilliance of truth commissions after the end of apartheid. Grant absolution in advance as long as the miscreants tell everything. What an idea. Is it still working? I don’t know. It was better in the early years, at least, than the Yugoslav experience, in which the ethnic hatreds were forcibly held down for decades under Tito rather than being illuminated and, perhaps, reduced through the experience of public confession.

Then, an hour or two up the road, the radio gave me a jolt in the other direction – away from mercy for the miscreants who have dragged this country through the mud for the last two presidential terms. What was it? A voice from 40 years ago – Chuck Colson. This country is so good at redemption. Here is the guy known as Nixon’s Hatchetman. He went to jail after Watergate, got religion, and now is a guru of the religious right. The program had a host who led us listeners to the brink of buying both the printed book and the audio version of one of Colson’s books. “This way you really get it packed in,” he said, or something like that, not having the brain to connect this with brainwashing.

And then there was Colson’s voice down the telephone with all the combination of fundamentalist Christianity and “well, I guess I’m conservative” political thought.

(This entire "interview" with Colson revealed itself to be pretty stale. Though it sounded sort of current, Colson dated it to last summer by saying that the Democratic ticket was still undecided, and it was down to two candidates. Guess the listeners in north Florida will be surprised when one of the Democrats gets inaugurated on Tuesday.)

Now I can only paint myself pretty naïve to think that there’s a good alternative to thorough investigation and prosecution. If miscreants like Colson and G. Gordon Liddy can be admired gurus decades after the disgrace of felony jail time, what can the following generations expect to emerge from the debris of loyal Bushies and their crimes? They will become billionaires and media royalty, especially if they get a slap on the wrist.

What else from the first day on the road to Washington?

• In the Jacksonville area I caught a black station for a few minutes (92.5 FM?) with two talkers who surprised me as they started pondering what to do about such a lot of people getting shot lately. Huh? What’s going on in JAX? They seemed to have good ideas about ways to try to keep youth busy. Pity that it takes money.
  
• There’s this from the NY Times website. Good stuff coming for the first full-tilt cyberspace Inauguration.
• I also note that other newspapers up the Florida coast are reporting good local participation in the National Service Day that Barack has called for on Monday. Here's a snip from the Palm Beach Post. The NY Times site (above) has ways for ordinary people to offer their photos and stories to the national spread of Inauguration events.

There is a true tingle to this. This is the best pre-inauguration mood I’ve experienced, going back to JFK when I was 20.

Pray keep us all safe and happy.