A Couple of Florida Heroes

Ron DeSantis began his work for the state of Florida on January 3, 2013.  He is a Republican from the 6th district, west and south of Jacksonville.  A Republican stronghold.  He is a lawyer with a distinguished military career.

Ron DeSantis was sworn into the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Navy at the US Naval Reserve Center in Dallas, Texas in 2004, completing U.S. Naval Justice School in 2005. Later that year, he received orders from Trial Service Office Command South East at the Naval Station Mayport, Florida as a military prosecutor. In 2006, he was promoted to Lieutenant (O-3). He worked for the Joint Task Force-Guantanamo Commander (JTF-GTMO), working directly with incarcerated terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay Joint Detention Facility.
In 2007, LT DeSantis reported to the Naval Special Warfare Command Group in Coronado, California, where he was assigned to SEAL Team One and deployed to Iraq with the troop surge as the Legal Advisor to the SEAL Commander, Special Operations Task Force-West in Fallujah.
He returned to CONUS in April 2008, at which time he was reassigned to the Naval Region Legal Service. He earned an appointment with the U.S. Department of Justice to serve as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Florida. LT DeSantis was assigned as a Trial Defense Counsel until his Honorable Discharge from active duty in February 2010. He concurrently accepted a Reserve commission as a Lieutenant, Judge Advocate General Corps, in the US Naval Reserve. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Iraq Campaign Medal.^[3



Ted Yoho began his work for the state of Florida on January 3, 2012.  He is a Republican from the 3rd district, which was gerrymandered when African American Rep Corrine Brown was booted to the 5th district.  He represents parts of Jacksonville and areas directly south.  He is a large animal vet. 

Yoho's biggest claims to fame are his endorsements:  Paul Ryan (aka, the Twerp), Michelle Bachmann, Allen West.  Oh, and his Congressional office is run by a 24 year old girl whose experience dates to the fact that she once interned for another Congressional Rep.  We actually pay these people. 


Why did I highlight these 2?  It's simple.  Along with the aforementioned Paul Ryan, they voted AGAINST relief for Hurricane Sandy victims.  Yup.  Congressmen from Florida voting against hurricane relief.  Having been in office for two weeks, I'm sure they drew upon their vast experience to arrive at this conclusion.

Geesh. 

Got Her Done.....

It was dark-thirty at 7 a.m. this morning when I stopped at the North Tampa Library to place my vote.
A little surreal... the lady in front of me made quite a lot of noise about my perfume causing her asthma to kick in.  I put a lot of space between her and me, and when I entered into the balloting room, about 10 minutes after I arrived, I had to, for the first time, show my driver's license.  It was handed back to me with a white receipt on which the poll-worker had drawn a yellow magic marker line.  She told me to go to the yellow line.

Immediately suspicious, was I being sent to the yellow line because I was a woman?  Because I looked over 55?  Because I was white... I studied the green and orange lines (each with about 10 people) and could find no obvious "lumping" by demographics.  The captain of the yellow line gestured to me....I asked her...why was I yellow?  She responded, "because we have 5 lines, each a different color, and we open them as needed depending on traffic flow."  "The crowd just got bigger, so I opened the yellow line, and you are the first one in it.".... I felt pretty foolish.  The county ballot was absurd, one page for the voting and 4 pages of small printing (once in English, once in Spanish) of each of the tom-fool amendments our legislators sought to burden us with.  I finished in rapid order and inserted each page into the machine, got my sticker (above) and walked out.

Whole process, 20 minutes.  Effort?.... priceless.

GO VOTE!

Bizarre or just not Inclusive?

I often wonder if some of the bizarre stances that Mitt takes are because being inclusive is just not something he has any familiarity with, at all. 

We will not hear the end of the snarky "binders of women" comment he made last night.  Was it the compelling point of the debate?  No.  Was it an example of how socially awkward he is, because his experiences in the high world of finance and the Mormon church have not provided him with a setting where he could learn about diversity and inclusion?  Most probably, in my opinion.

He obviously had a talking point memorized last night, and used it at the wrong time.  When asked about promoting pay equality on a going forward basis, really, all Mitt had to say was "I support that women should make as much as men do if they do the same work."  Instead, he decided to play up the one time in his career (his only political office) where he had a mixed staff of men and women.

He launched into a disingenuous discussion about his efforts to hire more women (6 out of 14) and stumbled over how he found the candidates in "binders of women" brought forth by women's groups.  He complicated his answer by dwelling on how women need more flexibility in the workplace, and he's granted it, by letting them go home at 5 pm so they can make dinner for the children.  OMG.

By the way, here's the real story of Mitt's feminine hires in Massachusetts:

In fact, Romney did not direct women's groups to bring him female candidate.  A non-partisan collaboration of women’s groups called  Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP; a sort of regional Emily's list for appointees) was responsible for the effort in 2002, when the group's leaders realized that women held only 30 percent of the top appointed positions in the state.

Romney boasted that during his term as governor, Massachusetts had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America. "Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort," he said.
This statement, too, is misleading. While 42 percent of Romney’s appointments during his first 2-1/2 years as governor were women, many resigned, and the  number of women in high-level appointed positions actually declined to 27.6 percent during his full tenure as governor.

     ~real story as reported by Boston Phoenix reporter David Bernstein

Mitt created the culture at Bain Capital, and while he ran it, there were no female partners.  Today, only 4 female partners exist in the 49 partner structure.  Mitt Romney simply does not see women
as people who belong in the room where the decisions are made.  Pure and simple.

5 Things

For me, it's simple.  I look at the 5 things that strike me as the fundamental ways to judge a candidate.

In the 2008 election, most of the "5 things" were about what Dubya had brought to the stage, things I didn't think McCain could change:

Thus, 3 things I didn't believe in and 2 things I thought Obama brought to the table:

       1.  The war in Iraq.  I was against it from the start  Both candidates said they would follow
               through in bringing the troops home, McCain a little more reluctant.  The war in Iraq
               was wrong, and ultimately, the biggest American shame of the decade.

       2.  Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.... propelled as "bringing us to new economic heights", these
               tax cuts, which most people don't realize, were heavily weighed to the wealthy, reduced the
               revenue of this country substantially, without maintaining jobs, and the deficit grew
              exorbitantly.

       3.   Social security privatization.  Bush wanted it.  He backed off, and so did the party, as his
              unpopularity grew.  One voice that did not back off?  Paul Ryan.  He had a much starker
              plan right through 2010.  And, if the party had not told him to "get off it", he would have
              continued.  SS is a fairly easy fix... for years, the upper income limit grew, until it reached
              $107,000, and there it stayed for 3 years.  In 2012, it grew to $110,000.  If you are the CEO
              of Citibank, you pay less than $7.000 in SS tax, and if you make $110,000, you pay the same
              amount.  Changing that is pretty simplistic.  There are other simple changes that will
              elongate the fund to get past the baby boomer generation. 

      4.    Torture.  I believed Obama when he said he would call a halt.  And he did.  Nuff said.

      5.    The economic morass.  It was such a mess at the end of 2007.  I was so scared.  We all were.
              And though there has been no magic, I believed that Obama would do more and faster than
              McCain.  And he did.  The stimulus worked.  The auto bailout worked.  I'm not sure when
\             McCain would have been able to make a dent.


And this year, the 5 are very different.


      1.   Taxation.  Romney's plan is ridiculous.  Both men seem poised to take on revision of the tax
             code, but you can't start that by cutting taxes 20% across the board.  And, if that happens,
             watch the deficit, and the wholesale ax applied to domestic programs we need.

      2.    Defense.  Romney is planning to spend big.  Right now, Obama plans to spend $550 billion
              without sequestration... sequestration dictates $500 billion.  Romney wants to go to $750
               billion.  At the height of the Cold War, Reagan was at $600 billion.  Why?

      3.   Reproductive rights.  I don't agree with taxation and defense spending.  But I'm afraid of the
            changes in reproductive rights for women.  This is my number 1 issue of the year.  Do I want
            my daughter and granddaughters to be able to get healthcare if they need Planned Parenthood
            to do so?  Yes.  I believe in the right to choose for abortion.  Perhaps the majority of the
            public does not.  But don't be fooled by Romney's position that he would allow it for rape,
            incest, or health of the mother.  That will last one day.  Ryan's much stricter position... no
            abortion at all, and little, if any, contraception, at all, will be the stage on which their doom
            will be set if they are elected.  They will go in that direction, as have most of the Republican
            dominated states.  And it will be their downfall.  They are rolling back time, by 40 years,
            for women.  They might survive the backlash for a year or so... but it will not last.  Women
             will fight for these rights in the same way that civil rights for blacks was the battleground
             of the 60's.  And it will destroy any Romney presidency. 

      4.   Immigration.  I believe in the Dream Act.  I believe in the tightening of borders that we have
             accomplished in the past 4 years.  Beyond that, I think either party will struggle with
             Immigration reform, until we find a way to make it work, stumbling along as we usually do.
             Romney and Ryan absolutely do not support the Dream Act.  And they have no solution for
             1.5 million Americans who are trapped. 

      5.   Jobs.   There is nothing wrong with direct jobs legislation.  The Jobs Act of 2011 is a good
              start and Republicans blocked it.  All of Mitt's plans are to let the money he gives back to
              the wealthy propel jobs.  If the economy grows, that will happen, regardless of new tax cuts. 
              Specific jobs plans make sense.  Had we passed the Jobs Act, and
              created 1.5 million jobs, we would be ready for round 2 right now.