Recently in Politics Category

Most people are writing about fireworks and other celebrations today. That's outstanding and I don't fault them for it. However, I want to use the spirit of the day to remind us that our independence is under challenge and assault every day.

This clip is of Orlando Police officers denying a WFTV camera man the same basic rights allowed to other citizens simply because he carries a camera. They threaten him with arrest, even claiming they've already arrested another media person for trying to assert the same civil rights as others - to walk down a sidewalk. Clearly, the Orlando Police officers on the scene do not trust photographers and they are using coercion (threat of arrest) to prevent him from lawfully engaging in the same activity as others. Coercion is illegal in all 50 states.

Journalists and media have no more rights to access to a crime scene or police investigation than an ordinary citizen. They are ordinary citizens. That means they should also have the same rights. If the police allow people to access an area, they must allow ALL people to access an area. The law doesn't make exception for them to discriminate just because someone has a camera.

Enjoy our Independence, but keep your eyes open for those who would abuse their authority to curtail our freedoms. Orlando Police are among them.

More Honesty, originally uploaded by wbeem.

I saw this guy in standing by the Amway Arena before the Rush concert on Tuesday evening. I couldn't help it, I had to snap a photo with my iPhone. I told the guy I'd give him a couple of bucks for the photo. He smiled and approved, but told me I'd have to come closer because he wasn't allowed to leave his area.

You see those little blue marks on the ground to his right? That's the designated panhandling area allowed in the City of Orlando. As long as he stays in that box, he can hold his sign and collect whatever money comes his way.

Generally, I don't want to be bothered with people begging for money. If his sign had said anything else, I probably would've ignored him. However, I admired his honesty and humor. The guy was genuinely nice and articulate, too. We talked briefly about Rush. He remembered seeing them for the first time in 1974 for $4.50. I paid $109.50 for my ticket that night. Times change.

The news is playing about an event that happened last year. Orlando Police Officer Fernando Trinidad pushed a woman down the stairs at a downtown club. As a result, he lost 8 hours of vacation pay. Seriously, that's all that happened to the dude. Eight hours is one day of vacation. Poor guy. He's still on the streets, badge in one hand and gun in the other.

Not only did Officer Trinidad push a woman down the stairs, but then he arrested her on a trumped up felony charge. He lied to make it seem like he was the victim, she spit on him, yada yada yada. Fortunately, the thing got caught on the club's security camera where he was hired for an off-duty job. If you haven't seen it already, here's a clip from WKMG news showing what happened.

So why didn't he get more punishment? According to a statement by Orlando Police Chief Val Demings (who was then Deputy Chief, I'm told), it's because his civil rights were violated. The police union filed a grievance to protect the officer because he wasn't informed about the charges that launched the investigation.

This smells like the blue code of silence to me. Yet another law enforcement officer abuses his authority and someone on the inside helps him cover it up. We wouldn't be hearing about it now if the video hadn't come up. The victim is suing the cop and now there is a criminal investigation. The state may actually do what Orlando Police failed to do - cost this officer his job by invalidating his certification.

I was all set to write a scathing rant against this cop and the Orlando Police Department, but what good would it do? This is just another case of a cop out of control. Watch the video again. Notice how casually he shoves her down the stairs and walks past her like nothing happened. Equally bad is his partner. He's complicit with the crime by not taking action or speaking up about the bogus charges. This woman wanted to be a teacher. I bet her application looks real good with a felony arrest on it. What was her crime? Under what circumstances does a cop push someone from behind down a flight of stairs?

There's no point in ranting, though. Cops are as corrupt as ever. All of the hope and excitement around Val Demings becoming the first black woman to be Chief of Police in Orlando is over. She's just as bad as the rest of them. Now, on the evening news, she admits that the punishment was insufficient. However, her hands are tied because they can't punish him again. Remember, they took away 8 hours of vacation time. We wouldn't want to be unfair to a bully with a badge, would we? After all, he's got a union behind him.

This is police brutality on video. The police and the union both tried to squash it. Next time you see a cop, will you trust him? If you call the police and Officer Trinidad shows up, would you want him in your house? I damn sure wouldn't.

I originally posted article this on the Orlando Sentinel's Sanford Community blog:

Fear and ignorance. If you don't understand something, it must be evil and sinister. Fear and ignorance. What better place to teach this system than in Seminole County Schools?

The problem was clear. Kids only have a limited amount of time to go through the lunch line and eat before they get back to class. The line sometimes takes too long as kids fiddle around punching in their PIN number to draw payment access for lunch. Sometimes a kid forgets his PIN, so the line slows down. The intended solution was to use a fingerprint scanning device. No memory required, just bring your finger.

It would be a perfect solution, if not for the fear and ignorance of the parents of these kids. To many minds, fingerprints have a negative stigma because they've been used so long by law enforcement to identify criminals. They also fear the theft of their child's identity by use of these systems. Their fears wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so ignorant of the way biometric systems actually worked.

Law enforcement agencies have used fingerprints to successfully identify people for more than a century. Let's face it, police wouldn't still use fingerprints if they weren't more than reasonably accurate at identifying an individual. Law enforcement isn't the only use of fingerprinting, but it's prominent enough that people still feel a stigma when asked to submit their fingerprints.

Biometric systems like the fingerprint readers use in schools, or at Walt Disney World, don't keep an image of a subject's fingerprints on record. There's no way for someone to steal your fingerprint from the system and use it elsewhere to impersonate you. Instead, the biometric systems only store a pattern known as minutiae - the specific points on a fingerprint where the lines diverge or converge. When fingerprint scanners look at your fingerprint, it's only searching to see if those points on your fingerprint match an existing record. No other fingerprint will match the same set of minutiae, and you cannot use minutiae to build an image of a fingerprint.

While the parent's fear of identity theft from a collection of minutiae are unfounded. Their fear is from ignorance. That's where our Seminole County Schools truly failed. In order to implement this system, the school system should have educated the parents to alleviate their fear. Now the parents may rightly feel distrustful of a school system that didn't communicate details about a sensitive topic. As a result, the lunch lines will still move slower than necessary. Equipment and systems procured by the school system for fingerprint scanners will probably sit unused as a minor monument to tax dollar waste, all because of a failure to alleviate fear and ignorance.

Earlier this week, Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary sent this message to the media.

I am tired off party politics. I am tired of the bickering and not getting anything accomplished for the American people.

In Washington, we refuse to address the emerging violent crime problems, pretending one does not exist.

In Florida, our violent crime issues have fallen on deaf ears. Our juvenile crime rate is skyrocketing and we don’t want to address the problems.

In Orange County we don’t address public safety needs as they relate to growth and increasing tourism.

Maybe it’s time for Republicans and Democrats to put people first and not their party agenda.

I find this interesting. Kevin decided to leave the party during the week after mid-term elections changed the balance of power in Congress to Democratic control. When Republicans were in power, Kevin was a Republican. He sits in an elected office as a member of the same party of those who were in power. Why is he venting this frustration now? Did Kevin Beary have a difficult time getting help from Washington politicians?

A day before the Sheriff's announcement, a member of his SWAT team violated department policy by leaving high-powered automatic weapons in the passenger compartment of his SUV. A couple of teenagers stole the weapons. Fortunately, they recovered the weapons today. Unfortunately, they recovered them after a drive-by shooting. Someone got the tag number and that lead deputies to the arrest.

I originally wondered if Sheriff Beary made his announcement about leaving the Republican party as a diversion form the news about the stolen weapons. Although this is a decision that most likely would've been going through his mind for a while, the timing seemed about right to change the news headlines (which it did).

The part that I don't truly understand is how denouncing his political party is going to change anything. What does Washington politics have to do with decisions made by state and municipal politicians? Growth and tourism are local issues, not national concerns. Although the rest of the country may have traded-in its politicians, the picture in Central Florida is pretty much remaining in the status quo.

Ultimately, Kevin Beary is a politician and well versed in self-promotion. His approach is generally blunt and, to my mind, unprofessional. One cannot deny his ability to manipulate people and get his way. The fun part is trying to figure out what he wants with this latest stunt.

It seems to be an election night tradition. No matter which party gains power, you can rest assured that one of them will have a child or relative who gets stinking drunk and arrested.

Charles William Nelson, son of Florida Senator Bill Nelson, apparently reeked of alcohol, started a fight with police, and ended up getting his face planted on the ground and feeling the love eminating from a can of official police pepper spray for two or three seconds.

I actually feel a bit sorry for Senator Nelson.  He's done a good job for Florida and he doesn't deserve any taint on his image for the actions of his 30 year-old son.

It's election night and Central Florida had one big mother of a storm this evening. The news reporters talked about it affecting the vote. I can see how it affects turnout. Who wants to stand in line while there are tornado warnings in your area. However, I'm not clear how they determined the weather would swing the vote one way or another.

Are we to believe that Democrats may win because Republicans wouldn't vote in a thunderstorm, or vice-versa? It may be possible. Does one party tend to vote earlier and another wait until the last couple of hours? I'm a Republican, and I voted early last Friday. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how things shake out.

It's no surprise that the Associated Press already declared Bill Nelson the winner for the Senate race. If the Republican party couldn't support it's own candidate, Katherine Harris, why should anyone else support her?

The Republicans are otherwise doing well so far. Charlie Crist is ahead of Jim Davis (no, not the creator of Garfield) for governor, and Ric Keller is ahead of Charlie Stuart for Congress.

The office elections are shaking out as I thought so far. The issues are more important on my mind, though. According to the election results posted right now on the Orlando Sentinel, all of the ammendments appear to be heading in the YES direction. That just tells me there's no end to the ignorance of Florida voters.

I guess I'll see the final story when I wake up tomorrow morning.

 Since resigning from Congress last Friday, Mark Foley's been showing an interesting series of excuses for his pedophile behavior.  I wonder which PR consultant is giving him clues on what to feed the press?  Basically, he's trying to divert the blame by becoming a victim himself:

• He blames alcoholism
• He blames sexual abuse by clergy
• He's announced that he's gay
• He's entered rehab for alcoholism

Foley's lawyer, David Roth, announced that the former Congressman is cooperating with law enforcement, preserving all e-mail and records, and anything else that investigators may want.  Isn't that precious?  After years of inappropriate behavior on juveniles, he's playing nice.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate thoroughly.  Of course, there's also a Congressional and FBI investigation.  Who gets to nail him first?  Probably an imprisoned father who doesn't like pedophiles.

My suggestion to Mark Foley is to visit the find his prison name so he's prepared for what awaits him.

It's the day after Primary Elections in Florida, and now we have results. In some cases, things didn't work out quite the way the experts predicted, but I'm OK with that. Most notably, Katherine Harris won the Republican primary for Senate. That means she goes head to head this November against the incumbent, Bill Nelson. You may recall that Katherine Harris now has her own definition in the Urban Dictionary. For his part, Bill Nelson has no relation to Major Tony Nelson from I Dream of Jeannie .

Now I have to come clean. As a Republican, I actually voted for Katherine Harris in the primary. Yes, she's nuts. I honestly wouldn't be proud to tell people she's my Senator, either. However, I don't believe she's going to beat Bill Nelson for the Senate. Bill, despite being a Democrat, just hasn't done anything stupid enough to warrant getting fired. Let's face it, there's a lot of power to being the incumbent in a political race.

So why did I vote for Crazy Katherine? Purely for entertainment value. The other contenders in the Republican primary also had no chance of beating Bill Nelson. Hell, I wouldn't vote for any of them for a county office. If one of them actually won the primary, we'd be in for a boring election season. That's not so with Katherine Harris in the race. I firmly believe that she's committed to our entertainment value, just as she's demonstrated in the race up to date.

What happens if she actually wins? Although that's a scary thought, I still think it provides entertainment value. Florida is not without its share of crazy politicians. Just look at Corrine Brown or even Katherine Harris. Both serve in the House of Representatives . They come from different parties, but both are just as wacky as a pair of raccoons breaking into a trash can. They make noise, they make a mess, and you get mad when they run off with something you didn't even want.

She probably won't win. If she does, I'll cringe to think that I was a part of the reason for her election. Then, I'll think, this is just what the Republicans need to stick it to the Democrats. The Republicans aren't offering her any support, so she's the perfect weapon when logic just doesn't prevail. As we all know, that's politics.

That's right, I placed my vote in Seminole County. Interestingly enough, I had the option to place two votes. It seems the volunteer clerk who checked my ID and made sure everything was proper...didn't make sure to only hand me one ballot sheet. Actually, I didn't even notice until I finished my ballot. Then I realized there was a second ballot sheet to fill out.

That seems odd. The mailer I received from the Seminole County Supervisor of Elections only listed one sample ballot. Upon review, I noticed it was the same ballot.

That's when the old Boy Scout in me took over. Before I considered the evil possibilities, I told the desk clerks that I received two ballots. That definitely got the attention of one volunteer, but not the lady who passed the ballots to me. They started checking records to see which one she recorded, but that didn't matter. It seems these ballots aren't numbered. I passed the blank one back and left them in their frenzy while I walked over to insert my ballot in the voting machine.

The guy stationed by the machine asked what was the issue. When I told them that I received two ballots, he just said "Don't matter. No big deal." I guess they didn't have much of a turnout, so why not double-up on the ballots for each voter?

As much as I like the idea that my vote counts more than others, I don't need to cheat. With the low voter turnout, my vote really does count more than those who never bothered to vote.

All that's left now is the waiting.

It's election season. That means we get tons of news about things done and said by people seeking office. This year, we get the ever entertaining Katherine Harris running for Senate. She's on the Republican ticket, but the Republicans in power don't seem to want her. Considering some of the things she does and says, no wonder. Consider this piece on the Orlando Sentinel's political blog.

It's so awful that you almost have to laugh. Does this idiot realize that she's just insulted millions of voters by declaring that anyone who is not Christian is evil?

Separating religion and politics is "so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers," Harris said.

Oh, well then feel free to insult the voters. They don't matter. Just believe in God and He will elect you to the U.S. Senate. Wow. That's a strategy I've never heard before. Good luck with that, Katherine.

I'm not picking on Katherine Harris because I'm anti-Republican. Far from it, I'm a registered Republican. No, I'm picking on Katherine Harris because she's just flipped out.

The part that's really scary is...she's not in last place. Consider these results from a Hispanic Chamber of Orlando straw poll:

U.S. Senate: Will McBride, 125; Bill Nelson, 70; Katherine Harris, 37; LeRoy Collins Jr., 18; Peter Monroe, 5.

Of course, it just keeps getting worse. Now she has her own entry in the Urban Dictionary.

Katherine Harris is by no means the only loony candidate this season. She's just the most promising one for our entertainment purposes this season. What truly frightens and tittilates me at the same time is the notion that she could represent me in the U.S. Senate.