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FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Monday, November 22, 2004

"Inoculate Ourselves Against Despots"

    Precisely when did "Jeb!", a failed water pump salesman* and all purpose "businessman"**, become a constitutional law scholar?
    Gov. Bush keeps trying, but he can't find a court to agree with him that the state can shift tax money to religious schools. His latest loss came at the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee. All the judges gave him the courtesy of hearing his case, rather than restrict it to three random members of the court — who had already ruled against him.

    A spokesman for the governor says he still thinks the state's original school voucher plan is constitutional. Of course, that is not the governor's call. Courts decide constitutionality. It's one of several ways we inoculate ourselves against despots.
    "Jeb picks wrong voucher fight". I think we can expect continued, and escalating, attacks on Forida's judicial system by "Jeb!" and his fellow GOoPer constitutional scholars in the Legislature.
    -----
    *Recall the brief attention given "Jeb!"'s tenure as a water pump saleasman, including this 1999 St. Pete Times piece:
    MWI, which stands for Moving Water Industries, in 1992 sold Nigeria $74.3-million-worth of giant water pumps and other equipment in a deal made possible by a loan from Export-Import Bank of the United States. Nigeria is about $23-million behind on its payments, and as the Miami Herald reported last year, many of the pumps were unaccounted for or sitting idle. From 1989 to 1993, Bush and Eller co-owned a company, Bush-El, that marketed MWI pumps, which are used for flood control and irrigation. Bush traveled to Nigeria to help push the pump sales, and as son of the president, received red-carpet treatment.
    "Some say probe tests ties to GOP backer". The Miami Herald put it this way:
    It was 1991, dad was in the White House, and Jeb Bush was hopscotching through Nigeria in a corporate jet, on his way to meet government officials he hoped would buy $74 million worth of water pumps from his South Florida business partner. On the jet with Bush was a Nigerian associate in the deal, Al-Haji Mohammed Indimi, who carried several heavy Hartmann suitcases. At least one of the bags, the airplane's pilot says, was packed with cash to bribe the Nigerian officials. Did Jeb Bush know about the cash in the suitcase? Did he understand what the money was for? Bush declined to be interviewed for this story. His campaign emphatically denied that he knew anything about suitcases full of bribe money.
    Water pump sales . . . it's a tough business.

    **"Jeb!" as "Mr. businessman" is detailed in the Miami Herald's "Bush and business: Fast success, brushes with mystery".

7:57 AM

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