Baitball Blogger
Baitball Blogger's JournalDidn't Robert Novak use polls to convince Gore to accept defeat in 2000?
Correct me if I'm wrong. I have a vague remembrance of Robert Novak adding fuel to the punditry bonfire to get Gore to concede the 2000 presidential election. Novak was a hard-core right-winger who eventually died by a brain tumor. It's hard to believe that our side even gave him any credence at all, but that was back when Democrats would buckle because someone would convince them it was "for the good of the country."
What I remember about Novak was how he flaunted an on-line poll to show that most people wanted Gore to concede. And it was compelling. The thing is, we only discovered later that these on-line polls would allow individuals to vote as many times as they wanted to. It was the year 2000, afterall, back when we still had software that used two digits to connote the year, rendering the software obsolete after the year 1999.
After we understood the on-line poll glitch, where unlimited access was allowed, there were many many more years where the media would poll more Republicans than Democrats, and never explained the skew in their reports.
Since then, I listen to the hype and not the numbers. When someone flaunts a poll to justify someone stepping down, I automatically ignore them because, in today's world polls can be easily manipulated. There is so much data on all of us, that anyone with access to a prospecting service already knows how we are likely to answer a question before they even dial our phone numbers. Even then, they're only accessing those of us with landlines.
Polling is so unreliable, especially in today's world.
Question: Why is no one talking about the obvious problem about how a shooter got a chance to shoot someone
at an open rally?
At Trump's PA rally, Crooks must have carried in the AR-15. In plain sight. The only time that people noticed him was when he climbed up on the building. And even then, it took far too long for this combination of factors to register with legal authorities. Man walks in with lethal weapon. Man seeks out high ground.
It's obvious that the Republicans have achieved their objective: They have normalized the carrying of weapons in society, and by doing so, they have made us all less safe because they have stolen the golden minutes from us. It's the window of time when most sensible people spot danger, and have the time to retreat or find cover.
At some point, with some topics, even skeptics would become cynical. Wouldn't they?
Somewhere in the last few years, I went from skeptic to cynical when it came to my expectations from hard right leaning conservatives. And to this day, I don't think I'm wrong. By definition, skeptics "are not easily convinced; having doubts or reservations" and cynics have solidly reached a conclusion. For example, they are convinced that human beings are motivated strictly by self-interest. There isn't room for doubts. It is a fact.
Living in a suburb in Central Florida, all I see is the latter. People are motivated by self-interest. Never have I seen someone step up in a self-less manner and do anything that was for the better good, but against their own interest. Even if it appeared that they were making a huge sacrifice on the surface, if you looked hard enough, there was something in it for them. Whether it involved taking more land along their property line from the Association, or a commission from a sale of a house from one of the neighbors, or even a good buy on some form of property that, If you look hard enough, there seems to always be an inducement factor in their good works. Since I'm not the kind to go along to get along, I just shutter myself away from those circles.
Maybe this is the legacy of living in a Capitalist society where the powers that be prefer to apply Libertarian methods, which are allowed to run unfettered, but it just always seems to end the same. People who you thought were good, eventually step across the line and make that decision to take what they feel they're owed.
This is probably why I feel most comfortable with the younger generations and foreigners who haven't yet been exposed to these temptations. For a very short time, I get a chance to feel that connection with people where we can exchange the best of human interaction, and I can walk away without having to look over my shoulder to protect my back. It's a great feeling when it happens.
It's just a simple recognition of the world I live in. I am indeed a cynic. For example, watching Trump bribe his witnesses is no surprise. But if he gets penalized for it, that would be the surprise factor that would test my resolve as a cynic.
I just wonder why it's taking this country so long to figure out that the way this country operates, is the reason why so many of us get marginalized because we're in the way of the ambitious, but stay marginalized by our own choice because there really isn't anything in it for us to fight back.
I know. I could write stories about this crazy belief.
I saw it for the first time in the nineties when this community went insane over the fate of a failed P.U.D. It is a very detailed history, but it came down to one major landholder trying to develop his private property. Small groups of connected people met in public and private meetings to discuss ways to stop him. Some thought they were fighting to protect the PUD, and others were more interested in how they could personally benefit from the inevitable event that it would be dismantled. I researched that time period through public records. We lived here while it was happening, but were not part of the connected group until everything was set in motion. It was an eye opener.
At some point, they were trying to figure out how to get around land development laws in order to dismantle the P.U.D. The most corrupt local lawyer even spread a faulty legal opinion to persuade the community, using the master hoa's monthly magazine. And it is my belief that the good ole boys in my community applied what he was telling them to try to dismantle the common grounds in our private HOA property.
And here is the thing about allowing community leaders and elected officials to meet in private meetings. Things are said that are simply not legal or sound. But the most greediest and ambitious in a community will use that information like it's gospel. There was a group of them in my HOA, and I believe they applied the faulty legal interpretations in an attempt to take over our HOAs common grounds. We didn't even know what hit us, but I was part of a small group of people that slowed them down, just long enough to understand what was going on. I believe we would have had 100% success if it weren't for a couple of local lawyers who interfered when they had conflicts of interest. It always felt like we couldn't find firm ground to stand on, because, without proper legal advice, it's a lot like trying to walk through a slippery mud pit.
What an alarming period. My neighbor was the president of our HOA, and our community also had a well-connected good ole boy down the street who had better political access. Information he brought into the community, affected the president's judgment. The first tip-off that something was very wrong came from the behavior of president's wife. She would go into conniptions whenever my husband mowed even a foot over an invisible property line. This went on for several stressful years. The best we could do was leave a mohawk of grass between the properties. She was so rattled by it, that she once pointed at me and told her workers, "There's bad blood between us." Fuck, what? How did I get caught in this deplorable country song?
For the most part, I avoided her, which is my go-to strategy for anyone that I feel might be tempted to think that Manifest Destiny is an acceptable white privilege they can use to take over common ground or someone else's private property. You would be surprised how many people will throw out restrain and good judgment when they're taking part in a bickering basket.
Those were stressful years. Nerve-wracking, and completely drained me of any trust I had in people. But it helped me to see how, in a white suburban community in Florida, the seeds for self-destruction are already planted and ready to burst out of the ground.
By courting the hard right, De Santis is deluding himself.
All along, De Santis has been pandering to the hard right faction of the Republican party. It's the side that embraces the idea that America belongs to the "right" kind of American, which is to say, Anglo-centric conservative roots. To court them, he uses terminology which is not disguised. The Anti-woke rhetoric is very much in our face, evidenced by his programs. He took on Disney in the beginning because they dared to stand up to his anti-gay policies. He's removing books in our schools that teach tolerance or awareness about the minority experience. THESE are very loud tells about his personal prejudices. Yet, I think he believes that no one has deciphered what he thinks is a dog whistle.
Every time that someone takes him head on and asks him a question that would expose him for the racist that he is, he avoids giving a direct soundbite that would make it simple and easy to replay. And we need these statements to reach the Republicans who are go-alongs. They're not full blown racist, or anti-gay and this failure to look deeper will blind them into voting for someone who can very well become our first American Mussolini.
I'll give you two examples of these kind of voters. One Republican just dismisses De Santis rhetoric, claiming he is talking big just to expand his voter base. He doesn't live in Florida and doesn't really believe that De Santis will follow through with his programs. Another Republican is a mother who has a gay son, loves him dearly, accepts his lifestyle, but she likes what De Santis is doing. When I told her that De Santis has an anti-gay agenda, she replied that the media twisted his words.
That's why we need a hard hitting, concise statement from this weaselly governor that leaves no room for doubt that he does have an anti-gay and anti-racist agenda and he doesn't support women. He cannot go into the next election with these issues left dangling.
So far, he's been able to get away with it by either getting pouty and angry at the questions or claiming that he did not have anything to do with the changes that are taking place at the local level. i.e. He claimed that he was not responsible for the school book removals because he didn't give the direct order, yet the orders stand because everyone knows that's what he wants. They are riding out a direct dog whistle, like they think we are incapable of deciphering the message. And that's why he's such a weasel.
In Florida, he'll get away with it, because this is how Florida operates. It is behavior that I call: it is, but it really isn't. I saw it when we had two leaders representing our HOA during a chaotic time in its development. One was the leader that tried to take control of the board by extending his term without a formal election, and the other was a good ole boy who had a direct relationship with the Mayor. So I got to see both ways that Florida operates. The backwater way, and the way that pretends to follow the rules. Imagine trying to get proper representation with that situation? They both pretended they were following the proper process, at the same time that they were defrauding us by withholding information, just so they could get the results they wanted when it came down to recording a vote. The hidden alliances with their supporters gave them the power to sell snake oil at the formal meetings.
There is only one way to break out of this rabbit hole, and that is to expose their agenda loudly, clearly and publicly. Unfortunately, in my HOA case it would take years to figure out the game board and time is of the essence in these situations. But in De Santis' case, we know everything we need to know. He is anti-gay, anti-minority and anti-female. The media needs to get those soundbites that show his affiliations now, so he has no pretense of enjoying dog whistles that to us, are as loud as a steam locomotive.
Republicans have been fighting to overturn American principles and rights since the nineties.
Something happened in the nineties. That's when Republicans stopped being a party of integrity and gave the crazies in their parties the right to play dirty to win. And now it's all out of control. It's just chaos and dystopia.
From my observations, I have to add that they started small. With property rights. The process and strategy was so clear to see in Florida, but it worked for them. And from there, they used the same process on the National level. We saw it with Roe. But that isn't the final objective. That would be a mistake to think that way.
It's no surprise that De Santis is leading the way at a very rapid pace, denying freedoms to people in order to reach his utopian dystopia, because in Florida, nobody stopped them when they went after Growth Management and the same backwater methods they used back then, still apply today. This is Florida. Laws are laws until they get in their way. Then they use a process of misinformation and chaos to do whatever they want to do and when you realize they did it crookedly, they demand respect for their toughness.
The Florida legislature is clearly doing that now by stifling the First Amendment Rights for reporters, giving public figures the right to sue them for whatever criticism they don't like in the paper. I don't expect this will beat a challenge in the courts, but damn, those counter lawsuits are slow!
Let me tell you about the nineties so you can see how the process works. Here in my community there was a huge development where the original developer went bankrupt. So there was this plan for high density developments AND large swaths of open space to accommodate the population. I mean, there was everything you could think of including stables and bridle paths. The City made the first error by ignoring the vested rights in those plats. They took way too long to acknowledge that the original plats had rights. In fact, the City Attorney admitted something about the City being run without a Constitution. No blue prints. No Constitution. Sound familiar?
So, the City lost the original developer and the new developer sued them to develop property based on the original plat. Instead of proper hearings, that would have allowed people to get informed properly, what happened next was dystopian. In reality, there was lots of room for fair negotiations. Those open spaces were a bargaining chip for the community, that didn't want to see high density housing.
But the City kept those negotiations in house. They bent the rules for public notices and pubic speaking when land changes occurred. I personally can attest that they didn't use the proper large size notices in a paper that was widely used by the City population. This was a State law. I did my own private investigation, going into the City and discovered that they were using a small Sanford paper that didn't even have a distribution center inside the boundaries of the City. And when they posted in the Orlando Sentinel, it was the smaller advertisements, and not the large 2x8 or 10 inch advertisements required by the State. The secretary told me that they were saving the City money. Always deflection.
So, land plans were hatched out of court settlements and the local population were enraged. Without those public hearings they were left to accept whatever the City and a new developer came up with in court. And what the active population did made it much worse, which gave the developer reason for more lawsuits, including business interference conspiracy.
As a side note, if reasonable minds had been allowed to witness the negotiations that resulted in the settlement agreements, they wouldn't have been as angry. That is my opinion. Some of the things they came up with in the courtroom, were pretty reasonable, swapping the open space for lower density communities. When you look at it that way, it makes what happened next a tragi-comedy. Tragic for us who live here, and a comedy to everyone else.
What finally broke the minds of the people that fomented the charge into City Hall, was the loss of tennis courts. TENNIS fucking Courts, people. Tennis courts which are composed of fenced in poured concrete with painted lines. They could have built them anywhere else. But, that's when it happened. That's when you could plainly see how useful idiots are created. The population was so charged with misinformation that was intentionally meant to direct their ire at the new developer, that they couldn't see how they were being used. It turned out there was opportunity in a huge 3500 acre plat that was being dismantled, but for small groups that had connections to take advantage of the chaos. My smaller community was one of those prizes, which is why this is a lesson I will never forget.
And, DUers, I have seen that pattern repeated over and over again, watching it spread on a National level. They stir people up to attack whatever gets in their way, and while the population is being used as cannon fodder (i.e. January 6th), they are getting away with the real steal. Today, we know what that is. De Santis is showing us with brute force. They are slowly dismantling American rights that they don't like, just like they dismantled the plat. They are taking over this country in this manner, and their side is so blinded by rage that they can't see how they're being used for a purpose that they wouldn't agree to, if more reasonable minds prevailed.
No surprise that conservatives are brazen with the law.
If there are no consequences when they break the law, the message sent is that no one is going to go after them if they proceed with their objectives. So, I'm saying it now, giving the Secret Service a pass for not protecting those texts is a huge mistake. I heard someone on MSNBC say that they may have understood it was a law, but no one ever really made an issue about it before, so they really didn't think it was a big deal. Hence, they were guilty of being lax. Not crooked.
This is how institutions and communities begin to degrade to the point where there is constant division and hostility in the air.
I saw it for myself on a local level. This was back when I was new to the community and didn't have enough of the local background to understand just how far my neighbors were involved in a fight that involved the community leaders against a developer. In those early years they were talking to each other in front of me before HOA meetings began and it might as well have been a secret code, because I didn't have the context to realize what they were saying. For example, before one meeting, the Treasurer asked a question to an individual who played a major role in that ordeal. He was the Major's good friend. I refer to him as Resident Roy in my writing of my experiences.
Treasurer: "How is everything going?"
Resident Roy: "It's a House of Cards. One goes down, they all go down."
Did not know what that meant until years later. I didn't even know what a House of Cards was. But it's an important thing to remember if you're dealing with social networks in Central Florida.
Another thing I heard at a meeting: "No judge in the State will side with a developer against a homeowner." People agreed.
You see, because they believed they were immune, they went ahead supporting strategies that also had the effect of breaching fiduciary responsibility to the rest of us. They really believed they were Top Dogs and that no one would hold them accountable.
In many respects they did get away with it. The lawyers came up with a Settlement Agreement that contained a Confidential Clause and that helped bury the facts.
And that's how communities degrade. With that kind of cover, those who could, used the freedom from consequences to abuse the rest of us as they grabbed whatever they could to compensate themselves for their troubles. In my HOA, that would involve common grounds, as well as the trust and goodwill that is part of a healthy community life.
In sum, the Secret Service's excuse that no one has ever really made a big deal of record keeping is the kind of excuse that reinforces crooked behavior. And it would be a huge mistake to let them get away with it now, because the next time there might be even higher stakes involved.
My guess to why Cipollone came clean, assuming he did.
From my experiences with bad political lawyers, they suddenly remember their ethical obligations when "word gets out on the street." That's an actual quote from a bad, good ole boy style lawyer in Central Florida. These are the kind of lawyers that work both the private and public sector. You'll find them as City or County lawyers at the same time that they represent private companies that are seeking approval from government.
It isn't uncommon for them to be members of, or even president of the Chamber of Commerce. With the connections they make working both sectors, it is easy for them to control the information that elected officials have in order to make decisions that will benefit the lawyer's clients, and their own pockets.
Because privacy is key to this process, communications are usually through phone calls. Back at the turn of the Millennium, I had a conversation with a group of ex-commissioners and they all told me the same thing. The City attorney would contact them by phone before City meetings and conversations would always be the same. He would impart the information and would say, I have already talked to so and so and they told me they're leaning in favor. Hard to argue with the lawyer when he's the one controlling the information on a subject they may know very little about. Especially when the lawyer goes out of his way to make them feel special, like telling them, "Don't worry, I've got your back." And they did feel special up until the moment they lost an election and were swiftly ghosted. He wouldn't even take their phone calls.
As you would expect, "regular" people who became part of this network believed they were suddenly bullet proof. They see another world that bends the rules to get whatever objective the government is reaching for under the guise of "public good." What happens when these people begin to weave their own personal objectives into this backwater framework? I can write that story.
Bottomline, lawyers can't control all that can go wrong when elected officials start to ad lib. This backwater world only works when there is secrecy and discretion. It is, afterall, a backwater, backroom, shadow government that they're running. Unfortunately for them, the most ethically fluid people may be the easiest ones to use, but they're also the most unpredictable. They talk, they're braggarts. And word finally gets out on the street.
I have to say that locally, they did a great job of tamping down on the public that caught on and tried to expose the group that went rogue here in the nineties, even when word got on the street. I could write that story. Fear mongering, bullying, and defamation. That's how they managed to silence everyone.
The only way out of this rabbit hole is through a formal investigation that will force the lawyers to talk. And some of them will talk because they know that it's the only way to save what's left of their professional reputation. Without it, you become a Giuliani. Someone who the public sees as a cross between a charlatan and con-man. I'm willing to bet that Cipollone is a step or two above Giuliani. He's the kind that will talk because word is now out on the street.
And for that, we have Cassidy Hutchinson and the J6 Committee to thank. You need both to break the pattern.
Miami Brooks Brother Riot: precursor for January 6th Insurrection.
This is a reflection of the things that have occurred in my lifetime, where Republicans would not rely on a fair process because they knew or feared they would lose. So they relied on the one strategy that is slowly killing this country: Division and mob incitement.
I start with the Brooks Brother Riot because I see a clear tie-in to current events. I'm sure others have seen it too, but I'm taking time to connect the dots because I don't think we give Republicans enough credit for their transparent and obtuse strategies.
What was the Brooks Brother storming about? It was a group of Washington D.C. GOP operatives flying down to Miami to storm the narrow halls of a building where election counting was taking place. So, people from outside of this State managed to interfere with the State's election count. And they succeeded.
It created a situation for a lawsuit to be filed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court did their best to hand the election over to Bush.
So, in my opinion, 2000 was just the first successful election interference by Republicans.
It's funny the things that stick in your mind. I don't know who said it, but in the early stages of the Florida voting mess, when Florida was going through its recount at the bequest of Gore, some bitter Republican said that Florida was not unique and that Republicans could do the same thing in other states to reverse the results.
I realize now, that was more a threat than a premonition.
And now we're at present day where the Jan 6th Insurrection Committee is doing a great job of connecting dots to show just how concerted and planned it was with all the pieces moving together for one desired goal. It started with the very same elements that were used for the Brooks Brother Riot. It required a mob creating chaos to stop a fair election process. Tomorrow we'll learn from the committee how they stepped it up by trying to force the votes of a fake electorate.
Here is where I throw a word of caution regarding policy by mob rule: I have seen this rallying the troops and storming the Bastille methodology since the nineties. On a local level it happened over a land dispute. The community I lived in was overrun with misinformation, forcing everyone's focus, energy and ire on a developer. And while the public supported the community leaders who most promised to achieve the desired objectives, from my pov, these leaders were opportunists. Not selfless humanitarians. They were people who would have found ways to profit from takings of the developer's property or community common grounds. Some would later find profitable positions in the government or private real estate sector.
I saw this forced policy-by-mob-rule again after 9/11. Most of us know what it was like being ridiculed and bullied by people who were more interested in the flag pin, than they were about following the truth. My husband lost his nephew in the Twin Towers attack so, afterwards, I spent a great deal of time on the online newspaper articles to try to find out what happened. I read a great many articles, especially from the Washington Post. I determined within weeks that the attack came from Saudi Arabia and I told my sister-in-law. She was so despondent that it didn't register. I again mentioned it a few years later, when I thought it was clear that Bush attacked the wrong country and her response was, "At least Bush did something." I didn't have the heart to remind her that Bush put the sons and daughters of many American mothers in harms way. Mothers who unjustifiably lost their soldier children and now shared the same pain that she did. No. I didn't say it, but I hope that others who subscribe to these faux-patriotic mob risings at least think about the possibility that they're being used as useful idiots.
I think it's important to talk about mob rule. And important to show how Republicans rely on confusing people in order to get their way. Sure, there will be people who are lost forever. But right now we're after the undecideds, the middle of the roads. And, as I see it, we're in a Civil War where the bullets are information and bandwidth. We need to keep blasting them with facts and the truth in a war that has no foreseeable end.
Things we can do NOW to protect our children in schools:
I keep harping that Democrats need to run on a safe schools program, and it keeps getting a cricket response. So, let's try again:
(1) Improve school design for public schools, where it's needed. I know some public school are built like fortresses, but not all. Some are built right off major highways where anyone can crash a barrier and run straight to a classroom. Those schools need to be fortified or redesigned. If there is no money in the school system, then it's time to get the money back from private schools. That transfer of public to private tax money is an abomination of the Constitution.
(2) Start now bringing in child psychology experts to explain that the GOP Conservative Anglo-indoctrination Camps that the Right is trying to turn our school into is going to create a lot of maladjusted kids. And with the prevalence of guns, it makes a bad mix. What a fucking right-wing quagmire. Republicans are going to create children with mental health problems, and when they go on a rampage, they'll say it was the mental health problem and not the guns.
Republicans just never think about the consequences of their policies. Or maybe they do. Maybe the reason why they want easy access to guns is because they are arming their people because they know that they can't push their policies on us without a fight? And, horrors of horrors, it never occurred to them that young men would buy those guns and storm schools?
We need to be the ones to protect our children, because Republicans are too compromised to be of any use.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Seminole County, Florida
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