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Sept. 27, 2009 – When Senator Mel Martinez quit his job as senator from the state of Florida, speculation was rife over his reason for quitting before the end of his elected term. The reason for his quitting was revealed recently and it should be no shocker: now ex-Senator Martinez has accepted a job as a lobbyist for one of the world’s largest law firms.
The detrimental effect of lobbying on our democratic system is well known. Our political centers have become a revolving door for politicians to enter the more lucrative field of lobbying. Half-hearted attempts have been made to “control” this practice, the more “meaningful” being that politicians cannot lobby their former colleagues for two years after leaving office. However, this does not prevent ex-politicians from being put on the payroll, as the case of ex-Senator Martinez shows. Adding to the disgrace is that ex-Senator Martinez could not even honor the commitment he made to the citizens of Florida by finishing out his term. Obviously, the lure of top dollars was too powerful for ex-Senator Martinez, who may have missed the section on the meaning of “public service” in Civics class.
Sept. 27, 2009 – Despite a terrible recession, crushing tax rates, high unemployment and foreclosure numbers, many Florida cities have opted to increase tax rates while preserving unnecessary perks. Some examples: the city of Pembroke Pines has increased its tax rate by 27% while at the same time deciding to spend $168,000 on parades! Almost half that money will be invested on one parade, a celebration to mark the city’s 50th anniversary. The city of Weston is also planning on raising tax rates on already stressed-out residents. Part of the money will be used to fund an Easter egg hunt, puppet shows, and its monthly foreign film series.
Once again, this proves how out-of-touch our elected officials are with those that they are elected to serve. Luckily, some sanity is out there in that some cities are doing the right thing and trimming costs rather than raising taxes. As an elected official in the city of Margate rightly stated, “It’s a matter of priorities. Tax dollars shouldn’t go into costly things like fireworks, which go up in smoke in ten minutes.” Citizens of Pembroke Pine, Weston, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Palm Beach County, where tax rates are all scheduled to go up, wake up and throw these undeserving scoundrels out of office.
Sept. 15, 2009 – For years, every six months, I would go to the dentist and get my teeth cleaned. This was free and is considered a basic part of every dental insurance plan. But the dentists have discovered another way to part people from their money. I went to a dentist’s office called The Dental Team. I wanted to have an routine dental exam and have my teeth cleaned. The exam was covered by my insurer, Delta, as was the cleaning. But The Dental Team said I needed a “Deep Cleaning” which would cost me out of pocket $238.00! When I said that I just wanted a routine cleaning as covered by my insurance, they said they could not do that. I would have to pay what amounts to half a week’s wages for most Americans, and this for what is considered a routine free service covered by all reputable insurance companies. Another example of sticking it to the ordinary guy.
Sept. 14, 2009 – Today we heard from an elderly woman in Florida, who has been victimized by another financial institution. These days there seems to be rampant abuse of the elderly. This woman made the final payment on a line of credit with CareCredit (a division of GE Money Bank) on time. All the other payments were on-time payments. The final payment was an ACH payment that was processed on the due date. CareCredit immediately, on the same day, posted a late fee of $29.99. Less than two weeks later, CareCredit began robocalling this elderly woman every hour, on the hour, to collect the late fee. If this is not an egregious abuse, what is? The very idea that any commercial entity can extort money by threats of collections, or credit damage, is outrageous – and an all-too-common occurrence. This outrage is being sent to state and Federal authorities for possible administrative action.
Sept. 14, 2009 – Two judges in Pennsylvania, Mark Ciavarella, Jr., and Michael Conahan, are the subject of a 48-count Federal indictment for accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks, in exchange for sending juveniles to for-profit juvenile detention centers run by PA Child Care LLC. These judges put these children away, even when probation officials recommended against detention — and they did it for self-enrichment! If this isn't a gross miscarriage of justice, I don’t know what is.
READER COMMENT: Even Justice is “for profit” in America! We have got to rid ourselves of this notion that everything in this country has to be based on the profit motive and that anybody who opposes this is a “communist”. Oh, when will this end?!
Sept. 13, 2009 – More controversies are emerging as Florida Power & Light continues its campaign to increase utility rates by a whopping 30%. ThePeoplesOutrage.org has been documenting this outrage since it started. Two new developments have emerged this week which once again clearly illustrates how Big Business has taken over our country.
The Florida Public Service Commission, which will either approve or reject FP&L’s request for a 30% rate hike, was forced to propose reforms as three of its employees resigned this week and two others were put on administrative leave. Members of the Public Service Commission are appointed by the governor, leaving them pretty much unaccountable to the taxpayer. As a representative of the Florida First Amendment Foundation stated, the PSC “… is fighting a huge public perception problem … the perception that something stinks over there and they’re being a little too cozy” with FP&L.
Adding to FP&L woes this week is a report that many of the people who spoke out in favor of FP&L’s 30% rate hike at the PSC hearings were associated with, or had connections to, this powerful company. Despite all these controversies, will the PSC approve this rate hike on struggling Americans in the coming weeks? We wouldn’t be surprised if they will. Floridians, hang onto your wallets again!
Sept. 13, 2009 – Carrying banners decrying “socialist” medicine and denouncing Obama as a new Hitler, thousands rallied in Washington against health care reform. Many expressed anger over the ballooning budget deficit and claimed that health care is a backdoor way of introducing socialism into the United States.
We have heard these tired arguments before. We would like to ask these demonstrators three questions: 1) Don’t you know that the Cold War is over, and “socialism” is no longer the Bogey Man? 2) Where were your concerns about the ballooning deficit when we were fighting a needless and expensive war in Iraq? 3) Why is your anger about “socialism” being directed against the fundamental right of all Americans to have affordable health care? But not a word about “socialism” creeps into discussions when giving out tax breaks and/or bailouts to big corporations who then ship jobs overseas.
It seems like “socialism” only applies when relief is being given to hardworking Americans, but not to big corporations!
READER COMMENT: Where were these demonstrators when Bush wanted to privatize Social Security? Or when he quietly passed huge tax cuts to the rich? Or when he got us into a unnecessary war on trumped up, bogus reasons in Iraq? Where were they when in the last eight years our budget deficit skyrocketed. Where were they when Wall Street raped the system at taxpayer expense? Where were they then?! But now they want to protest because our President wants health insurance for all. I don’t understand them! Obama wants to curb the predatory and unfair practices of privately run insurance companies who arbitrarily deny coverage to the sick because of “pre existing conditions”, or who take away coverage from a sick person who’s been paying his or her premiums faithfully because treatment is too expensive. He has promised over and over again that the money to pay for this will not come from taxing the middle class, but will come from correcting the system and increasing taxes on the wealthiest 5% of Americans — those very Americans who have secret bank accounts in Switzerland, and who frankly don’t give a damn about the idiot marching in Washington!
Sept. 13, 2009 – A high-ranking Wells Fargo executive moved into a foreclosed Malibu mansion shortly after the property was foreclosed on by Wells Fargo. The prior owner had to give up the property after losing his money in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Rather than put the property up for sale, Wells Fargo allowed one of its executives to move in.
In a time when people of all socio-economic levels are losing their homes, this is unseemly. It smacks of Nazi Germany, when high-ranking party officials would move into the recently vacated homes of people who were forced to move. While Wells Fargo has the right to dispose of properties as it sees fit, there is something insensitive about allowing its already high-paid executives such a perk. People are losing their homes, both rich and poor alike, and the only reason more executives are not moving into foreclosed homes in your area is because those homes are probably not good enough for them!
Sept. 10, 2009 – Republican Mike Duvall resigned as a member of the California Assembly after an open microphone picked up his bragging over an affair with a female lobbyist. Although his comments about spanking his mistress, her eye-patch underwear, and his concurrent affair with another woman (Mr. Duvall is also married) are in poor taste, what should really concern citizens is the fact that his affair was with a lobbyist for an energy company. Mr. Duvall was a member of the Utilities Committee. An investigation is underway to verify if the affair swayed his vote in any way. Chances are we will never know.
It is bad enough that lobbyists are compromising (at best) the political system or corrupting it (at worst) with money. Now they have to throw kinky sex into the mixture. This really begs the question: if the people who are guarding the hen house are caught sleeping with the fox, what is happening to the hens?
Sept. 10, 2009 – The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case which has the potential to undo 100 years of campaign election reform. The case would allow big companies and multinational corporations to inject unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a particular candidate. Since 1907, Congress has passed laws restricting the amount of money such mega-corporations can inject into an electoral campaign, cognizant of the fact that unlimited money gives one candidate an unfair advantage and leaves such candidate beholden to those interests that got him/her elected in the first place.
Apparently, a group of unelected and unaccountable judges, appointed for life and living in a crystal palace, do not see the damage that unleashing unlimited amounts of money in our campaign system can do. Under the guise of “free speech”, these judges are about to put the nail in the coffin of a free and democratic electoral process in the United States. We have all seen the corrupting influence of special interest money and mind-boggling expensive campaigns. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Big Oil, Wall Street, and the insurance companies, then “government of the people, by the people, for the people” will certainly perish from this earth.
Sept. 8, 2009 – I am enclosing a copy of a letter I sent a company called “Bill Me Later”. They are the poster child for corporate greed and [the need for] government regulation.
I am sending you this letter to inform you that I have sent back to the Food Network the videos I ordered. I did so because I am outraged at the fact that you charged me a $19.00 late fee plus a $2.00 processing fee on a bill that was originally just $31.67. I am a teacher with Broward County schools and I bought these videos to use in my Culinary Arts class. Here in Florida, we teachers have suffered the indignities of pay cuts, salary freezes, loss of benefits, and increased class sizes, all this in a state that ranks 50th in teacher salaries. And then we have to suffer the further outrage of being charged late fees that would make the Mafia blush in embarrassment. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against late fees as long as they are reasonable. $21.00 on a $31.67 charge is usury, so I am therefore sending the videos, which by the way I never used, back to the Food Network.
I am enclosing a copy of this letter with the videos so that the Food Network will understand why I’m returning them, along with a copy of your bill.
Sept. 3, 2009 – President Obama’s scheduled speech welcoming students to a new school year has triggered a perplexing firestorm of controversy among parents who have flooded school boards demanding that the speech not be shown. One Florida politician said that the speech would “introduce socialism in the classroom”. One parent sent a school board a message in which she declared that her child “would not be brainwashed by that man”.
It is a sign of how uncivil and disrespectful the tone of speech has become in our country when an innocuous speech by the President of the United States (and not by “that man”) can generate such controversy and anger. Where was this anger when prior presidents gave televised speeches to school children (as President George H.W. Bush did in 1989)? Why the Red Scare tactics and charges of brainwashing? What are people afraid of, and why have they become so intolerant? If only these people would invest their energy in fixing the real problems of this country and not going after trifles that smacks of bigotry and disrespect.
Sept. 2, 2009 – A 37 year-old man with muscular dystrophy was dropped by his health insurance company when the company, Guardian Life Insurance, refused to renew his health insurance policy. The patient, Ian Pearl, lives in a wheelchair on a ventilator and requires 24-hour nursing assistance. The family appealed the decision of Guardian Life Insurance to not renew his insurance policy but lost.
There but for the grace of God go I. Today it’s Ian’s turn to lose what should be a human right, not a privilege. Tomorrow, it will be the turn of other Americans. This can only end when real health care reform is implemented.
Sept. 2, 2009 – Thousands of Floridians rushed to motor vehicle registration offices to renew driver’s licenses and car registrations before the state more than doubled the fees for such services. As one frustrated Floridian stated “Why couldn’t they wait until the recession is over?” Many of these fees are more than doubling. Waits at motor vehicle offices were more than five hours long and the computer system crashed because of the volume of people renewing online.
Why the reason for such hefty hikes in times of hardship? Let’s let the politicians do the talking. Mark Hollis, spokesman for Florida’s democrats, got it right when he said “These are in effect taxes … [on the middle class]”. Florida governor Charlie Crist got it wrong when he said “[this] is better than raising taxes”. When you are taking money from the wallets of hardworking people for required necessities, it is a tax. Governor Crist needs to go back to school.
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