Finally, Martin Activist Maggy Hurchalla Goes to Trial

By

BARBARA CLOWDUS

February 3, 2018 

The Lake Point lawsuit against Maggy Hurchalla, a former Martin County commissioner and environmental activist, alleging she interfered with the western Martin rock mine's contracts, finally … finally … goes to trial Monday. The county has endured five years of legal wrangling, accompanied by the choreographed hand-wringing and inflammatory remarks by Hurchalla groupies to get to this point.

As the trial date approaches, the intensity increases as Hurchalla supporters emphatically begin pointing to Lake Point as the culprit in creating this mess  -- those billionaires -- as if their wealth alone is sufficient evidence to vindicate Hurchalla of wrong-doing.

We have seen those widely distributed email blasts accusing Lake Point of hiding behind the scenes, pulling the strings, controlling even the state attorney and the grand jurors, who indicted sitting Commissioners Sarah Heard and Ed Fielding on two counts apiece and former commissioner Anne Scott on four counts of violating the state public records laws.

Credit: Patrick Carlson

Read the article at Sunshine State News...

Ron DeSantis Jumps in Florida Governor’s Race

By 

ALLISON NIELSEN

January 5, 2018 - 9:00am

After months of swirling speculation, U.S. Rep. DeSantis is officially running for Florida governor. 

DeSantis made the announcement Friday. 

DeSantis has represented Florida’s 6th District in Congress since 2013 but widely flew under the radar until recent months when political insiders began speculating he would make a bid for governor.

DeSantis’ first big brush with gubernatorial publicity happened last month, when President Donald Trump tweeted his support for DeSantis, a potential boon to the Congressman’s gubernatorial aspirations.

Read the story at SUNSHINE STATE NEWS...

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Some Real Fake News on Trump and Trade Data

Friday, 24 February 2017

Posted by Alan Tonelson    LINK

Talk about a non-story. That some globalization cheerleaders have tried to blow up into a scandal. And all because the Trump administration seems to be interested in correcting important distortions in some commonly used U.S. trade data that presents a misleading picture of America’s exports, imports, and trade balances.

Here’s the situation. Last Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that  “The Trump administration is considering changing the way it calculates U.S. trade deficits, a shift that would make the country’s trade gap appear larger than it had in past years, according to people involved in the discussions.”

According to the Journal, “The leading idea under consideration would exclude from U.S. exports any goods first imported into the country, such as cars, and then transferred to a third country like Canada or Mexico unchanged….”

Continued the article, “Economists say that approach would inflate trade deficit numbers because it would typically count goods as imports when they come into the country but not count the same goods when they go back out, known as re-exports.”

So in other words, President Trump and his minions are thinking of artificially deflating the figures describing what the United States sells to the rest of the world, but not making a corresponding change on the import side that would reduce the amount of goods that the nation buys from its trade partners. The result would be a larger U.S. trade deficit, and added ammo for the administration’s claim that America’s trade policy needs major surgery. Talk about creating “alternative facts,” right?

That’s what the Journal‘s editorial board concluded. Charged these trade zealots, the Trump-ers’ “effort to recalculate U.S. trade flows to show larger deficits” is a “trick….borrowed from the political left” that “deserves to be hooted down as an attempt to manipulate statistics to assist bad economic policy [i.e., curbs on trade flows].”

But these allegations aren’t even close to the mark – that is, if you believe theJournal‘s own reporting. For as the original piece eventually reveals (based, as is the entire article, on anonymous sources), the president’s team is indeed mulling making those import data changes, too – which would involve switching the import measure “to ‘imports for consumption,’ a slightly narrower way of measuring imports that would make less of a difference in the overall balance. “

Which means that – weirdly – the Journal reporters decided not to tell those outraged economists that the supposed Trump administration exercise would make statistically valid symmetrical changes, or that these (of course nameless) economists received this info from the reporters and decided to ignore it in order to try to create the appearance of impropriety. It also means that Journal editorial writers either didn’t read their own publication’s coverage all the way through, or chose to ignore that decisive material. Either way, someone has just massively violated their profession’s ethics.

As for the change (reportedly) under consideration itself, it’s entirely justified because those re-exports that under the main system for presenting trade data are counted as real exports literally are not Made in America. As indicated above, they enter the U.S. economy from abroad and then are shipped overseas (or across the border to Canada or Mexico) in nearly all cases entirely or virtually unchanged.

This means that they add virtually nothing to American economic growth or employment – a major and entirely valid reason that exports are so beloved). Andalthough, as some trade advocates claim, their transit into and through the United States creates logistical jobs (in transportation and,warehousing services), such logistical jobs would be created anyway if those goods were domestically produced (Unless you think that such products typically don’t need to be stored after production and then transported to customers, too?)

Moreover, the distortions resulting from sloppy methodology of the main exports numbers are anything but bupkis. Last year, for example, failing to strip out foreign-produced goods boosted total U.S. merchandise exports by 15.43 percent – or $224.33 billion. Relatively speaking, the impact on manufactures exports was even bigger – 17.48 percent, or $223.36 billion.

And the effects on America’s goods exports to Mexico and Canada, its partners in the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), are especially noteworthy. Proper counting would reduce 2016 U.S. merchandise exports to the former by 23.19 percent and manufactures exports by 25.30 percent. The comparable numbers for Canada are 17.14 percent and 17.93 percent.

Moreover, since proper counting has little effect on import totals, either globally or for NAFTA trade, raising its profile would definitely show higher U.S. deficits. And the export gap has been growing steadily across the board.

Fittingly, this story can be closed on an absurd note, too. As indicated above, the U.S. government already compiles and reports (though in an unsatisfactorily low-profile way), export and import data that quantify exports actually produced in America, and imports actually consumed in America (although, as discussed inthis solid Public Citizen analyses, the import numbers could still use some improvement). So a changeover to more accurate figures that reveal trade’s true impact on U.S. production and job creation looks to be pretty easy. Think we’ll be reading about that in The Wall Street Journal?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Can the U.S. Chamber Put One & One Together on Trade?

Posted by Alan Tonelson in (What's Left of) Our Economy

I’ve long urged trade policy critics (including Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump) to stop questioning the intelligence of globalization cheerleaders. Especially, when we’re talking about offshoring-happy multinational corporations and their hired guns in Washington, I’ve insisted, they’ve known exactly what they’ve been doing – pushing the trade and other international economic policies likeliest to reward the companies with the biggest profits in the shortest time-frame.

True, the longer-term effects have produced losses for many of them – especially since the immense imbalances resulting from these policies helped trigger the financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession, which at least initially hit earnings and stock prices. But charges of stupidity don’t seem valid even in this regard, since most of the American economic system’s incentives discourage long-term thinking.

A new U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, however, could justify a rethink. For it’s a great example of an organization ignoring evidence that’s been staring it in the face for literally decades – and that’s become especially glaring recently. Moreover, it inadvertently validates the claim made by American politicians like Trump that major numbers of manufacturing jobs could be returned to the United States if Washington only mustered the will to do so.

The Chamber, of course, has been one of the most powerful mainstays of the overlapping corporate offshoring and cheap labor lobbies, and this morning released a study bemoaning the worldwide growth of what’s often called “techno-protectionism.” That is, more and more countries have been working harder and harder to promote their own domestic information technology industries through a variety of new regulations that the Chamber rightly notes have cloaked simple beggar-thy-neighbor aims in national security rationales.

Read the entire post at...

Apple Supports the TPP, and Has a Friend in the Right Place

by Alex Lazar on May 13, 2015

President Barack Obama and big business haven’t always agreed on hot-button issues, but they both seem to be overwhelmingly in favor of approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

 

One such business is the enormously profitable tech company Apple, which is listed as a member of the U.S. Business Coalition for TPP. Happily for Apple, it has a friend in the higher echelons of the Obama administration who’s well aware of the firm’s particular concerns: Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Catherine Novelli.

Read the article at opensecrets.org...

Cato Institute: A BETTER DISABILITY INSURANCE BENEFIT STRUCTURE

Connect to the study by Cato Institute analyzing the failure of the SSI programs under the Social Security Administration. This 36-page report is available for download in .pdf form HERE.

SSDI Reform: Promoting Gainful Employment while Preserving Economic Security

The authors offer a common-sense solution that is designed to appeal to conservatives and liberals alike.

Technorati Tags: SSI,entitlements,reform

The Chickens of Globalization Come Home to Roost #tcot

By Patrick J. Buchanan - 20 July 2012

Mitt Romney is today the beneficiary of some desperate counsel from alarmed Republicans on how to escape the snare in which he has found himself.

Democrats are charging that Mitt was still chairman and CEO of Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002, when the company was advising some of America’s premier outsourcers.

The facts are in dispute. But the evidence seems on the side of the Romney camp — that Mitt did not run Bain after he went off to fix the Salt Lake City Olympics. Yet the matter raises a larger question.

What has the Republican Party got against outsourcing?

Does not the party establishment preach the gospel of free trade?

Did not the Republican Party come to the rescue of NAFTA and GATT when Bill Clinton cried for help in fighting off the wicked protectionists?

Did not the GOP foreign and economic policy elite endorse entry into a World Trade Organization where we have no veto and one vote?

READ THE REST…

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BuzzNet Tags: economy,protectionism,Republican Party,Bain,Romney,jobs

Why SCOTUS Has Made a Terrible Mistake #tcot

Clark Neily in Politics, Courts 

Today’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was a bombshell. In brief, Chief Justice Roberts supplied the critical fifth vote to hold that Congress may use its taxing power to require individuals to purchase a government-approved health insurance policy.

The decision itself is complicated, with multiple opinions that will need to be studied carefully over the coming days and months. In a nutshell, however, it may fairly be said the Supreme Court has just authorized the most significant expansion of federal power since the New Deal. Unfortunately, it has done so in a way that will make it very difficult for average people to intelligently discuss and debate the merits of the decision. That’s because the decision rested not on an interpretation of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause (as augmented, perhaps by the Necessary and Proper Clause), but rather under its taxing power — which is among the most specialized and obscure subjects in all of constitutional law.

Read the rest…

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BuzzNet Tags: ACA,ObamaCare,Supreme Court

MARCH TO THE BEAT OF A REAL WORLD. POST 79

CHEERS, CONNIE: MARCH TO THE BEAT OF A REAL WORLD. POST 79:

To hear the media tell it, they're marching all over THE Wall STREET brokers and causing untold confusions. Unfortunately, the media made the mistake of showing an overhead view of the marchers and if they were more than 500, they must have been hiding. In a country peopled by over 312 Million, that's not even a "drop in the bucket". The press modified its propaganda by saying there are uprisings in cities over the country. Well, there was a group in a Miami, Florida park this week who were barbecuing politicians and bankers verbally rather than picnicking.

Read more…

Looking out for the LITTLE GUY

While the rest of us are meeting in Orlando to find a Republic Standard Bearer for the 2012 election (to defeat the Obama Machine), Vice Pres. JoeBiteMe is coming down to Miami to consult with one of the Progressive Best for a little “redistribution” of our wealth. The struggle for the rights of the oppressed continues in the Miami home of  Michael M. Adler, Chairman of the Adler Group.

Isn’t it inspiring that people like these can fight the millionaires and billionaires with their big corporate jets mentality and the greed that compels them to resist the Obama juggernaut? Why must the greedy Republicans continue to prevent Obama from raising the debt ceiling once again to “create jobs?” But I digress…

While Republicans are hatching plots to uncover the hypocrisy of the Progressive/socialist message, the gritty work goes on in that socializing manner that true radicals embrace. With dedication and zeal, Progressives suffer through the Miami heat to bring poor Joe Biden a meager repast on September 23. Where else can you see the “people’s work” being done for Social Justice?

Technorati Tags: Biden,fundraising,Democrat,Party

How `bout that Rick Perry!

Aug. 14, 2011

Is anyone out there convinced that Rick Perry had a choice about where and when to announce his candidacy for the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary? Are we that naïve to believe that it was “unfortunate timing” that led Rick Perry into a position that conflicted with the results of the Iowa Straw Poll? If you paid attention to the Sunday morning political parade you may have noticed the show that was being produced for your consumption.

Every other word out of the mouths of the legacy press pundits was “RickPerry.” They were falling all over each other to confer Republican front-runner status on the guy who hasn't even warmed up a seat on the campaign bus yet. But they were not counting on the sterling performance of Michelle Bachmann in their grudging coverage of the Iowa events.

It is apparent to me that Governor Perry has been anointed by the editorial board of the New York Times as the Republican favorite from the Progressive Wing. He inherits this position from John McCain, recently defeated by Barack Obama, another favorite of that same editorial board. How else do you explain the elaborate display of Perry regalia broadcast on the Sunday morning shows, the erudition flowing from the non-Texans populating the panels, the litany of Perry accomplishments at their very fingertips, without a fully developed script from the New York Press elite? They had their assignments well in advance of Perry's “untimely” announcement on Saturday.

But, much to their dismay, the dialogue unfailingly turned to the presidential appearance of Michelle Bachmann in Iowa. As soon as they realized that they were unwittingly examining the race from the Bachmann perspective, someone would say, “... and how `bout that Rick Perry.” Then the conversation would ensue about how much closer to “middleclass American values” Perry was - compared to Bachmann!!

The ABC program, Meet the Press, made the tactical choice to include The Republican Governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad on their panel. He looked like a distinguished, mild-mannered gentleman, but then proceeded to loudly dominate the discussion about the conservative theme that was closer to “mainstream” than the disastrous policies of Barack Obama. At every utterance he was singing Michelle Bachmann's theme song. But then you would hear, “... and how `bout that Rick Perry?”

So the order of the day from the New York-dominated press seems to push Rick Perry as the “Republican” choice. They really like Rick Perry. They have even fitted him for a tricorne hat in place of his usual Stetson. The press has dubbed him a “tea party favorite” while quoting his “unwaveringly conservative” views. They are quick to point out that Texas, under Governor Perry, has produced one-third of the new jobs created in the nation for the past three years. Imagine that!

Imagine this. Imagine that you had discretion about where to spend stimulus money to affect the number of jobs in one state or another. Imagine that you had a huge project like the North American Free-Trade Agreement and its Trans-Texas Corridor to sweeten the jobs picture. How much credit could you muster for the governor of that state when you want to make him look good in the New York press? Would it matter much that your incumbent president is losing popularity with the voters if you have another in the wings dressed up like a true cowboy/tea party hero?

Of course, you would have to minimize the damage that Perry has already done in the immigration debate. His opposition of the border barricade and his refusal to accept state responsibility in enforcement of existing immigration laws does not sit well with Texas' real tea parties. Neither do they cotton to his promotion of the globalist agenda on the North American Free Trade Agreement and his imperious actions to get the Trans-Texas Corridor built with foreign money (and under foreign ownership).

While he pandered to the “bring home the bacon” crowd, real conservatives see his connection to the big money in New York. There hasn't been this much “grooming” since Woodrow Wilson was packaged like a Constitutional patriot. Republicans seem content to allow these elite voices to pick their candidate, but Tea Party activists will be asking the hard questions during this campaign, and the RINOs should step back.

Jim McGovern
Martin 9/12 TeaParty Committee
www.m912tc.com

Technorati Tags: Perry,Bachmann

MANDATORY E-VERIFY STATES

MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA

By George Fuller
Floridians for Immigration Enforcement (FLIMEN)

Florida is a peninsula surrounded by water on the East, South, and West and on the North by states with mandatory e-verify laws. It is expected as illegal aliens self-deport from the states banning modern day slavery they will migrate to Florida. Corrupt illegal employers like Alico, Inc, run by Senate Budget Chair JD Alexander, chosen by U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Haridopolos, will gladly welcome more illegal aliens to the nearly 1 million in the state currently. Illegal employers use to own them, with all the upkeep of housing and feeding, and now they only have to rent them.

Loathe to shed the slave employment mentality, the companies employing illegal aliens by their very actions spit and walk on the legal workers of Florida. Floridians are left to educate, medicate and incarcerate the illegal aliens who create the chaos and anarchy in the state currently costing Floridian taxpayers nearly $5.5 Billion annually and over $25 Billion in the last decade.

Floridians need to brace themselves for evermore illegal alien costs as Florida remains the job magnet in the south-east part of the United States. The figure of 1 million unemployed legal workers and over 600,000 employed illegal aliens will surely rise in both numbers.

Who is to blame? Look no further than the Florida State Legislature. Every state immigration law proposed has been blocked from passage for years with the Republicans in charge. Understand Democrats would do no better if in charge.

Begin with Senate President Mike Haridopolos. He promised there would be legislation dealing with mandatory e-verify and he delivered twice.

Trade Deals Unite Left and Right in Opposition : Roll Call Lobbying

Note:  Read the article where your TeaParty mates, Jim Stack and Jim McGovern were interviewed.

Trade Deals Unite Left and Right in Opposition : Roll Call Lobbying

 

• By Ambreen Ali
• Roll Call Staff
• May 12, 2011, Midnight

Some tea party organizations have been quietly trading notes with left-leaning advocacy groups as both sides work to derail a series of upcoming free-trade agreements.

Together, they hope to deliver what one opponent of the deals described as a “one-two punch” to proposed trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. As liberal groups and labor unions lobby Democrats, tea party members have been calling the Republican freshmen they helped elect.

Some tea party groups have a protectionist slant, opposing pacts that might increase competition faced by U.S. producers, but other groups oppose trade deals because they oppose “big government.” For this faction, free trade should simply be freedom to trade with anyone, instead of a detailed treaty written by governments.

Those concerns differ from labor rights issues and offshoring concerns raised by labor unions and liberals, but Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach said many of the arguments are “different sides of the same issue.”

“I’ve certainly talked to them. We’re not working with them, but I have called them at different times to ask how it’s going,” said Wallach, who is director of the left-leaning group’s Global Trade Watch.

The alliance is less surprising when viewed in light of a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll from last fall that found a majority of Americans believe free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S. In that poll, 90 percent of Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats agreed that outsourcing is a reason the domestic economy is struggling and people are not being hired.

Hijacking Fisheries Management

Originally published, June 5th, 2007, this RFA paper has since proven that fish and fishermen are not the only variables in the equation of fisheries management. Since the implementation of the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996 the management of U.S. fisheries, while far from perfect, has become a model for the rest of the world. Yet one organization in America continues to use scare tactics to drive its agenda domestically while the most egregious problems can easily be found abroad. Their agenda may sound laudable, but the reality is that their goal is to stop fishing. Who has hijacked the management of our nation’s fisheries? You might be surprised.

Click here to learn more

The Shark Tank

Do Senator Rubio and the Political Class Grasp the Depths of Obama’s Duplicity?

by Javier Manjarres

March 27, 2011

Florida Senator Marco Rubio held a meet-n-greet with constituents along with a brief Q&A session for the assembled media at his Miami Senate office last Friday. Senator Rubio indicated that he was “losing patience”with the Obama Administration because it has not submitted the Colombian & Panama free trade agreement to Congress, finding it “inexplicable why those agreements have not been submitted for approval by the U.S. Congress.”

I had the opportunity to ask Senator Rubio’s opinion as to what similarities exist between the policies of President Obama and those of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  Rubio was somewhat taken aback by the question, questioning whether parallels between the two leaders even existed.  His answer to the question is on the video below, but it leads to a larger question- does Rubio, or the political class for that matter, truly grasp the extent of Obama’s lawlessness and the expansion of his executive power- both of which are in direct contradiction to the national interest and only intended to further his political aims?

The Wizardry Behind Fishery Management

By Sid Preskitt

Monday, 14 June 2004 16:00

Summary: FLORIDA -- Like Dorothy's Wizard, the main force driving the new paradigms in fishery management policy today have remained relatively hidden, cloaked in an obscure fog of distant international environmental policy meetings. It's now past time to pull back the curtain and see exactly who is back there, writes Sid Preskitt.

Full text:

Works and Days » The Rise of the Adolescent Mind

Works and Days » The Rise of the Adolescent Mind

 

February 24, 2011 - 9:28 am - by Victor Davis Hanson

 

We live in a therapeutic age, one in which the old tragic view of our ancestors has been replaced by prolonged adolescence. Adolescents hold adult notions of consumption: they understand the comfort of a pricey car; they appreciate the status conveyed by a particular sort of handbag or sunglasses; they sense how outward consumption and refined tastes can translate into popularity and envy; and they appreciate how a slogan or world view can win acceptance among peers without worry over its validity. But they have no adult sense of acquisition, themselves not paying taxes, balancing the family budget, or worrying about household insurance, maintenance, or debt. Theirs is a world view of today or tomorrow, not of next year — or even of next week.

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Rep. Will Snyder listens to the community

Crowd gathers at the Town Meeting for immigration enforcement.
{j.mcg}
What I saw at this meeting was an organized parade of people who invoked the "race card" repeatedly in opposition to this bill.  Despite repeated assurances by Reps. Snyder and Harrell, and even by Sheriff Crowder, these people kept hammering at the potential "racial profiling" fear.  If you say something often enough, it seems true.

All the speakers were well-behaved and civil, but the overwhelming theme was, "poor me, I'll be singled out by evil police because I'm not white."  One speaker (a Mr. Guzman, whom I otherwise agreed with) had the gall to opine that local law enforcement officers were incapable of understanding the complexities of the immigration issue.  His point was that enforcement must be left to the federal government.  He apparently suffers from the common misconception that federal must be "better."

I wanted to remind him of two things:

1. Our local officers are every bit as capable as most federal LEO's and many are better, and
2. if immigration laws are so complex that they require a super intellect to enforce, then maybe there's something wrong with the law.

Rep. Snyder was a law enforcement officer for many years.  He knows these guys (officers) are motivated by a need to protect the innocent and vulnerable, not by any meanness or cruelty.  These complainers can not understand this, as they see only bad in people.

This is not a RACE issue.  This is pure ECONOMICS.  And the lack of trust that was shown by these complainers was appalling.

Jim McGovern

		Jan2011SnyderPublicMeeting VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

NOAA's Catch Shares Fisheries Debacle

By Mike Johnson

Nov. 23, 2010

Barrack Obama came to office with an agenda to fundamentally change America.  An element of his agenda is a plan, known as catch shares, to restructure the nation's fishing industry.  The author of his plan is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the environmentalist rock star and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  When it comes to the oceans, the protection of fish, and the punishment of the evil fishermen, Dr. Lubchenco is as extreme as Obama's former green jobs czar, Van Jones.

Obama, with no managerial experience himself, didn't simply make Dr. Lubchenco one of his numerous czars -- he anointed her as the head of NOAA despite her own complementary lack of managerial experience.  Effectively, Obama has given the EDF control of the $4-billion, 13,000-person government agency that oversees the national fisheries.