On February 13, the Stuart News published an editorial column excoriating our state Attorney General for taking action in a federal case (American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA) involving federal regulation of waterways. If that were not enough, the editor couched their opposition in such colorful terms that their opinion piece took on the nature of a personal attack. Accusing Attorney General Pam Bondi of “supporting the polluters,” and invoking the image of some unsubstantiated photograph of a single diseased fish supposedly caught in “local waters,” the column slanders Ms. Bondi and distorts the actions of the Attorneys General who are battling against the federal juggernaut of overreach and usurpation of rights.
Where did this lie originate? Local environmental extremist lawyer Ginny Sherlock would have you believe that this case is merely one of concerned citizens against the big, bad industrialists who are intentionally causing damage to public resources without regard to state and federal protections of waterways. She is broadcasting to her email “network” (apparently including the editors of the Stuart News) her complaint against Bondi using similar inflammatory language and urging her compatriots to contact the state authorities against Bondi’s official duties, demanding that Bondi “stop using my money to fight for out-of-state polluters.”
Sherlock’s offensive attack can not be misinterpreted, so please bear with this reproduction of her broadcast email:
Date: February 13, 2014 at 16:14:01 EST
To: Littman Sherlock & Heims <LSHLaw@bellsouth.net>
Cc: Littman Sherlock & Heims <LSHLaw@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Urge Bondi to stop supporting pollutersHere is the e-mail complaint I filed with Attorney General Pam Bondi today (I identified the subject as "Stop Supporting Polluters" and the Company against whom the complaint was filed as Attorney General Pam Bondi):
Why is Attorney General Bondi spending my tax dollars to intervene in an appeal of a lower court's ruling supporting a regional plan to clean up Chesapeake Bay?
I object to Attorney General Bondi siding with polluters, especially when our own Indian River Lagoon is suffering increasing damage from fertilizer and agricultural runoff like that which plagues Chesapeake Bay.
Attorney General Bondi is fighting AGAINST, not for the citizens of Floria[sic] by siding with polluters. Florida citizens are not able to take advantage of programs that provide foreclosure relief or medical care because of incompetence and corruption in our own government here in Florida.
Attorney General Bondi, stop using my money to fight for out-of-state polluters. Pay attention to the very real problems Floridians face as a result of your failure to ensure that citizens of our state get the help they need from federal and state programs.
Ginny Sherlock
While it’s difficult to determine which is the chicken and which is the egg, this type of team bullying has been going on toward our public officials for decades, and they have so far been unchecked. The only voices that our Commissioners and other elected officials have heard for twenty-five years are those who have organized under the flag of George Soros, Al Gore, David Rockefeller, and Maurice Strong. So far, they have succeeded in getting our “representatives” to spend our money to get their way. Only now are Commissioners hearing from citizens who are shocked at the lies and subterfuge used by extremists to run roughshod over your property rights.
Such was the case recently (Feb. 04) when the American Citizens for Property Rights (http://www.ac4pr.org/) and friends appeared to petition the Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners to reconsider their support for the Seven50 Plan for Prosperity from the Southeast Florida Regional Partnership. There the Commissioners saw for the first time in their tenure that ordinary citizens (voters) were indeed concerned about property rights as much as they were concerned for the potential for environmental damage. The speakers, one after the other, demanded that the Commissioners examine the evidence presented by the regional “planners” before making a decision that impacts your property rights and the expenditure of public funds. Perhaps the Commissioners did not understand that this was actual “pushback” against the usual tirade of environmental extremism they have endured for decades. Such folly. It seems that the Board has now been populated by the very people who issued these tirades for many years.
The Commissioners were generally hostile and the atmosphere was toxic. Security was alerted to expect trouble, and trouble they caused. They came dangerously close to violating the attendees’ First Amendment right to petition our government officials when the leader of the Palm Beach County Tea Party was ejected for “talking.” Our commissioners in the several counties had better get used to the idea of citizens “talking” at their meetings. We will no longer allow the “planners” and the tree huggers to have their way without opposition.
Which brings us back to the Stuart News and Pam Bondi. Apparently Scripps still believes that the only ones who buy newspapers are the dim bulbs who swallow all of the pseudo-science emitted by Al Gore’s platoon of goons who accuse “deniers” of wanting to destroy the earth. So, if you want to use a critical eye to examine the evidence, you must be a “polluter.” So Ginny Sherlock may opine that if Pam Bondi wants to defend the rights of states to make their own way in protecting their environment and natural resources, she must be “supporting polluters?” To quote the Stuart News, “Rubbish.”
In their meager defense, the Stuart News today published Pam Bondi’s guest column (first published at www.contextflorida.com) explaining the action of the Attorneys General of twenty-one states in an Amicus brief for a case brought against the EPA. We can’t risk copyright violations by printing it here, but you can read the original AT THIS LINK.
Attorney General Bondi explains the elements of the case as, “…Congress — not the EPA — decides the extent of federal regulatory authority. And under the Clean Water Act, Congress left important authority to the states, expressly determining to ‘recognize, preserve, and protect the primary responsibilities and rights of States to prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution, [and] to plan the development and use … of land and water resources.’” The action of twenty-one attorneys general is in support of an act of Congress and hardly qualifies as “supporting polluters.” Ginny Sherlock, as a lawyer, understands this and that makes her campaign against Pam Bondi a bald-faced lie.
Perhaps someone who has the ear of the Florida Bar Association can remind Attorney Sherlock of her duty as an officer of the Court. This would not be the first time she has been found skirting the truth.
J. McGovern
Martin 9/12 Committee
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